The trampling of Venice shows why tourism must change after Covid-19 / Venice, an Odyssey: Hope and Anger in the Iconic City by Neal E Robbins

June 26, 2020, 9:19 pm

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The trampling of Venice shows why tourism must change after Covid-19

Neal E Robbins

Coronavirus has given hotspots like the besieged Italian port breathing space – and a vision of a new, greener kind of tourism

‘Venice’s residents want a ban on outsized cruise ships, and improved treatment of the lagoon that is vital to the city’s life.’

Published onFri 19 Jun 2020 15.05 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/19/venice-tourism-covid-19-coronavirus-green-tourism

Before Covid-19, the tourist industry was the largest employer by sector on the planet, giving work to one in every 11 people. And when the emergency ends, it will surely resurge – but should it return in the way it was before? Maybe now, finally, is a good time to rethink what tourism should be.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, the number of global tourists was predicted to balloon to 1.8 billion international arrivals a year by 2030. In 1950 that number was at 25 million. That huge increase cuts two ways. Tourism supports jobs, often bringing vital economic sustenance to historic or remote places. But over-tourism has a clear downside for the frailest destinations, like Machu Picchu in Peru, for many historic city centres, like New Orleans or Dubrovnik, and for the location I know best, Venice. There, 30 million annual visitors exert enormous demands on the residents, the heritage and the environment, changing tourism into a corrosive force.

In the years just before the coronavirus outbreak I spent months in the city of canals and culture interviewing Venetians about their lives. Invariably, the first thing they wanted to tell me about was the effects of mass tourism; how, since the 1990s, it has pushed out residents; how streets and squares can become dangerously overcrowded; how it has pushed up housing costs and destroyed local shops that now all cater to sandwich-eating, souvenir-buying tourists and little else; how it allows overweening sightseers to invade weddings, baptisms and funerals at its religious places. The social ties Venice once enjoyed, its rhythm of life, even the vibrant artisanal trades, are now almost a thing of the past.

On top of all that, the millions of tourists coming to Venice put pressure on the environment by generating mountains of refuse, through the heavy use of the vaporetti water ferries and taxis, by over-stressing ancient buildings, and with the moisture in their collective breath on artworks. The hundreds of visits from floating resorts – massive cruise ships each with up to 4,000 passengers – add to air pollution and cause erosion of the area’s sensitive lagoon environment.

The population of Venice, more than 170,000 after the second world war, has dropped steadily to some 52,000 today. Remaining residents still feel fortunate to live in a city of such beauty, many believing their culture survives despite the onslaught, but they also grieve at the losses, lose heart, and move away at a rate of 1,000 a year to homes on the mainland. A Venice without Venetians – without significant numbers of permanent residents – is predicted for as early as 2030.

It is no exaggeration to say that mass tourism – adding to Venice’s existing issues with mismanagement of the environment, corruption, political stasis and now the climate emergency – is bringing the community, the lagoon and a fabulous heritage to within a hair’s breadth of collapse.

Tourism was a fairly benign source of livelihood for Venice until the world itself took a step-change some 30 years ago, when a new economics helped bring on cheap air travel, faster communications and an accelerated globalisation. When management of the city was handed over to the market with few controls, Venice was turned into an asset for stripping. Regional changes to Italian laws in the 1990s unleashed rampant property trading that deepened the effects of mass tourism.

Yet Venetians believe that they can still save Venice, and many are fighting for it and demanding that politicians do more. They want them to manage tourist numbers and pass new laws to govern property sales and rentals and put an end to the Airbnb-led free-for-all that is pushing residents out. They call for a focus on long-term accommodation at sustainable costs and more jobs through economic diversification. They want more environmental measures, especially a ban on outsized cruise ships, and improved treatment of the lagoon that is vital to Venice’s life.

This has come into sharp focus in the months-long Covid-19 breathing space, when the sudden emptying of the city restored a lost tranquility, along with fish, swans and cormorants to canals no longer churned by excessive traffic. Most of all, it ignited the hope that this difficult moment for the world could eventually offer a turning point.

The need in Venice, and in so many other destinations, is for a new tourism, one that also benefits residents – not one organised around speculators, landlords, and traveller’s demands. We visitors must see tourism less as an unquestionable entitlement and more as a part of our responsibility to sustain life on Earth. This must ultimately include limiting tourist numbers.

Tourism after coronavirus requires a new mindset. Maybe we can’t visit places so casually; maybe we will need to sacrifice the freedom to drop in at any time and go anywhere as fast as we can or by whatever means suits us. We need to accept life – and visiting – at a slower pace.

Beyond that we need to end our passivity as tourists and see destinations as people’s homes, not just attractions. We should acquaint ourselves with local conditions and be ready to refrain from travelling if authorities listen only to monied interests and fail to foster local livelihoods and protect the local environment. Greener attitudes will help fragile destinations to live on – and allow masterpieces such as Venice to survive for generations to come.

• Neal E Robbins is the author of Venice, an Odyssey: Hope and Anger in the Iconic City, out in July

An evocative and fascinating portrait of Venice, Italy-the ultimate city where there are stories on every street and in every doorway, nook and cranny.

What is it about Venice? The city empowers creativity, and is a place of art, artisans, and artistry, with a rich cultural and intellectual history. It's also been facing major challenges-including a fragile ecosystem, significant depopulation and political volatility-leading to fears that the city will become an inauthentic museum for tourists.

Neal Robbins examines this Italian city, reflecting on the changes he has seen since he first encountered it in the late 1970s-living with a Venetian family while he was a high school student-to quite recently, when, after nearly 50 years and a career as international journalist, he returned to see how the city has endured and changed.

Drawing on his journalism background, Robbins brings deep research, curiosity, and keen insights to his personal experiences of the city, delivering a multi-dimensional profile of this enchanting place. Taking the reader down the city's streets, into its churches and cafes, and onboard boats traveling through its canals and out into its vital lagoon, Robbins shares the city's history, symbols, politics, and struggles, as well as its sounds, smells, animals, and many of its remarkable denizens. He draws upon exclusive interviews with Venetians from all walks of life-artisans, historians, a bank employee, authors, parents, a psychologist, an oceanographer, a funeral director, a nobleman and a former pop star-to share multiple personal interpretations of Venice as it was, as it is and what it can be.

Readers will come away with a rich understanding and appreciation of Venice's history and culture, the challenges it faces, and what it shows us all about the future.

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A message from the founders of Rancourt & Co.

June 28, 2020, 10:38 pm

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These are unprecedented times and the economic downturn created by the pandemic has negatively impacted our business in many ways. In response, we have come up with a rare opportunity for our customers. Our best sellers are available at wholesale pricing through a crowdfunding model. We will collect orders until we reach the order threshold of approximately 150 pairs per style, then make your shoes in batches of 300. At this volume we can keep all of our valuable shoemakers employed and avoid devastating lay-offs which hurts the shoemaking heritage in our community. We are grateful for your support and hope you’ll use this opportunity to help our small family business continue it’s 52 year tradition while acquiring a pair of handmade shoes worth waiting for. Shoes ordered here will ship in approximately 8-12 weeks if the order goal is met. If this timeline does not work for you, you can order from our regular categories at full price for the earliest delivery.

https://www.rancourtandcompany.com/crowdfunding.html

                   

                                 

An Interview with Rancourt & Co.

We sat down with Rancourt & Co. owner Kyle Rancourt to get his thoughts on his first boots, his favorite thing about Maine, and more

 

Kyle Rancourt

March 16, 2020

Will Porter

https://huckberry.com/journal/posts/interview-with-rancourt-and-co

If you know us, you know we are a bit obsessed with Maine, with good reason. We have a bunch of Mainers on staff here at Huckberry who seem to always look back with admiration, whether it is the amazing scenery, an unexpected surf community, or the haunting sites of a Stephen King novel. One of our favorite Maine mainstays is Rancourt & Co., makers of some of the best sneakers and boots you can find, all handcrafted and built for the long haul. A few years back, we got a behind-the-scenes look at their operation in Maine and we are back with an interview with the founder, Kyle Rancourt, in honor of our new exclusive, the Acadia Chukka.

What was your first pair of boots?

My first pair of boots I can remember were these beautiful Chelsea Boots made by an Italian shoemaker. They were hand-finished and burnished much like we do with our mimosa calf dress shoes. At the time, my dad was in charge of product development and design at Allen-Edmonds and he designed these boots for them. My first pair of boots at Rancourt & Co. was a boat-boot. At the time (circa 2010) American heritage style was all the rage and boat boots became a thing. I think they were navy suede with a white deck sole. A bit regrettable style-wise but hindsight is 20/20.

What shoes are you wearing right now?

The Bennett Trainer in Gray.

Where do you draw your inspiration from when designing new products?

So many places. A big part of it is utilitarian—comfort, versatility, classic styling. I also design footwear based on materials that inspire me. I'll find an outsole or an upper leather that I love then design footwear that works with those materials. Lastly, I do look around a bit at what some other industry leaders/brands I admire are doing and also take into consideration what our customers want or are asking for.

Rancourt's designs have really started to evolve and grow over the last few years. Can you tell us about how you maintain and balance classic style but continue to innovate with new, more modern styles like the Carson sneaker and Bennett trainer?

Yeah, I think that's true. It's definitely been an intentional shift as I don't believe we can grow and thrive in the long term but sticking just to the classics. However, I come at product development always from the classic or traditional perspective. The Carson and Bennett sneakers certainly aren't unique to us but our twist on them is what elevates them and makes them different. I've always loved the Vans Authentic so I said "How can we make this better and a "Rancourt" shoe?" We use Horween leather, Vibram soles and put a molded foam footbed in it so it's even more comfortable. The Bennett is another example - we took a really traditional runner silhouette and used high-quality leather for the uppers then put Lactae Hevea soles on the bottom. There are very few shoemakers using LH soles so that alone sets us apart while retaining the Rancourt DNA. I also really try not to over-design things. I like minimal design and a small color palette because our signature shoes are so traditional and simple I think everything else we do has to fit that mold as well.

Tell us about the unique style of the Acadia chukka - where does it take inspiration from?

The Acadia Chukka comes from an old pattern we had in our archives that I️ changed up a little bit. Since you can’t get crepe soles made in America anymore I️ sourced the “caliber” sole from one of our American sole manufacturers. It’s mean to replicate the classic crepe wedge-style sole. I️ think it’s really versatile - it can be worn year round and while it’s tough and durable it doesn’t need much breaking in. It’ll be super comfortable right out of the box.

White sneakers - dirty or clean?

Clean. One of the benefits of owning a shoe company is when my white sneakers get dirty I can just take a new pair.

We know our Rancourt's are going to last for the long run. But any boot care tips to help?

Two things that are super easy - get a good horsehair brush and brush them regularly, like every time you wear them or if they've been sitting around for a few weeks. It cleans them up gives them a shine if they are made from a "blooming" leather, like chromexcel, while also keeping particles from working their way into the break of the leather and degrading it. The second thing is to use cedar shoe trees in your boots when you're not wearing them. They will help keep the odor down and help retain the shape of the leather over time.

Best thing in Maine that you can't get anywhere else?

The landscape. Maine has the best of everything - big mountains, green forests, and beautiful beaches. In two hours or less, you can be in the backcountry on a mountain with no cell service and two hours in the other direction you can be in Boston or five hours to NYC. Portland, Maine is also a wonderful small city. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

British state 'covered up plot to assassinate King Edward VIII'

July 1, 2020, 12:57 am

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The Duke of Windsor, who was King Edward for a few months of 1936, on a tour of Nazi Germany in 1937. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

British state 'covered up plot to assassinate King Edward VIII'

Historian says papers challenge official version that George McMahon was a fantasist

Dalya Alberge

Published onSun 28 Jun 2020 15.55 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/british-state-covered-up-plot-to-assassinate-king-edward-viii

It has all the hallmarks of a 21st-century political thriller, including a plot to assassinate a controversial monarch, an MI5 double agent, and claims of a high-level cover-up.

In 1936, an MI5 informant called George McMahon tried to assassinate King Edward VIII as he rode his horse near Buckingham Palace. Just as he was taking aim with a revolver, a woman in the crowd grabbed his arm and a policeman punched him, causing the weapon to fly into the road and strike the monarch’s mount.

At his Old Bailey trial, McMahon insisted that a foreign power had paid him to kill the king and that he had deliberately bungled the assassination. Portrayed as a fantasist, he was convicted on a lesser offence of “unlawfully possessing a firearm and ammunition to endanger life” and imprisoned for 12 months.

Now claims of a cover-up at the highest level have emerged following the discovery of the would-be assassin’s memoir, in which he detailed the plot, his subsequent arrest and trial.

The previously unpublished account was discovered by the historian Alexander Larman, who told the Guardian that its claims are “explosive” because crucial details match those in declassified MI5 documents, including memos of their meetings with him.

In the account, titled “He Was My King”, McMahon asserted that he was recruited by the Italian embassy in London to assassinate the king and that his attempts to warn MI5 and even the then home secretary were ignored.

Larman said: “McMahon’s account corroborates a large amount of previously confidential and sealed MI5 documentation in the National Archives, which reveals that McMahon was also a paid MI5 informant who was passing them information about the workings of the Italian embassy in his guise as a double agent.

“McMahon informed MI5 that there would be an attempt on Edward’s life in the summer of 1936, but they ignored his information, dismissing him as unreliable. When this indeed took place on 16 July, it became hugely embarrassing to the country and a cover-up took place.”

Questioning MI5’s judgement in recruiting a heavy-drinking, Walter Mitty-type character as an informant, he described the memoir as being about 40 pages long with “barking mad” passages: “But, while it would have been easy to have written him off as a fantasist, there are declassified memos of all these meetings that MI5 had with him.” One confidential MI5 document records that some of his information was “undoubtedly accurate”.

Larman said that, because the assassination attempt was so scandalous, “the best thing the establishment could do was essentially neutralise him as an attention-seeker”. He added: “His argument in his memoir is that he was being hired by the Italian embassy to do outrageous things and that he was feeding all the information back to MI5.”

McMahon was a low-level fraudster and gun-runner to Abyssinia when he came to the Italians’ attention. They offered him cash for information about armaments. His memoir records payments as an MI5 informant: “I was to act thenceforth under the direction and supervision of the Military Intelligence Department.” Official records show that he met with intelligence services frequently in late 1935 and early 1936.

Larman discovered the memoir in researching his forthcoming book on Edward VIII and the abdication, a constitutional crisis sparked by his wish to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

He stumbled across it among the papers of Walter Monckton, which are housed at Balliol College, Oxford: “Monckton was Edward’s adviser. He not only acted for him during the abdication, but he stayed in touch afterwards. Presumably, this document came into Edward and Wallis’s possession some time after the abdication. It was then sent to Monckton and remained in his archives.”

The discovery will feature in Larman’s book, The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication, to be published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson on 9 July.

He writes: “The accepted version of the events, as depicted by historians and by Edward himself in his memoirs, is that McMahon was a confused attention-seeker who never had any serious intention of doing any harm to the king … However, recently declassified MI5 files, to say nothing of an extraordinary autobiographical document … offer a stranger and more complex narrative.

“It is entirely possible that MI5 were aware of McMahon’s planned attempt and were happy to let him assassinate Edward, thereby removing an internationally embarrassing monarch with believed Nazi sympathies from the throne. Or, alternatively, simply that they were embarrassed by their arrogance and incompetence.”

Prince Andrew under pressure after arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell / Prince Andrew is 'bewildered' over lack of response from US justice officials as he and Royal Family brace for new revelations after arrest of Jeffrey Epstein 'pimp' Maxwell / VIDEO: Ghislaine Maxwell charged over role in Epstein sexual exploitation

July 3, 2020, 1:59 am

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Prince Andrew under pressure after arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell

Royal ‘bewildered’ after US attorney asks him to come forward following arrest of his friend over alleged sex crimes

Victoria Bekiempis in New York

Fri 3 Jul 2020 05.59 BSTLast modified on Fri 3 Jul 2020 08.18 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/03/prince-andrew-under-pressure-after-arrest-of-ghislaine-maxwell

Pressure on Prince Andrew to speak to FBI investigators was mounting after his friend Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and perjury as part of its ongoing inquiry into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

At a press conference in New York in which prosecutors detailed the allegations facing Maxwell, they urged the Prince to come forward.

“We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement,” said Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the southern district of New York.

“I have no further comment beyond what I just said, which is that our doors remain open, as we previously said, and we would welcome him coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement.”

A source close to the prince’s working group said that his lawyers have twice communicated with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in the past month. “The duke’s team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month and to date we have had no response,” the source said.

Strauss’s remarks came following the arrest of Maxwell, the British socialite and close friend of the convicted sex offender Epstein was seized at a luxury hideaway in a small town in New Hampshire early on Thursday.

The prince has made no secret of his longstanding friendship with Maxwell, or that she introduced him to Epstein, who killed himself in his jail cell last August facing charges of sex trafficking minors, which he denied.

Prosecutors have continued their investigation and sought testimony from Prince Andrew. He faces accusations from Virginia Giuffre, who has claimed she was forced to have sex with him at Maxwell’s home in London when she was 17. Her claims have been categorically denied by the prince.

On Thursday, investigators accused Maxwell of “slithering away” into hiding. They claimed she had previously lied repeatedly about her direct and indirect involvement in the abuse of underage girls, because, they alleged, the truth was “almost unspeakable”.

“Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein to identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse,” the federal prosecutor Strauss told the press conference in Manhattan. “In some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse.”

“She set the trap. She pretended to be a woman they [alleged victims] could trust.”

Maxwell has long been accused by many women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex. Those accusations, until now, never resulted in criminal charges against her.

She has always denied wrongdoing in of her dealings with Epstein or females associated with him.

Maxwell had kept a low profile, and her location was unknown since Epstein’s arrest last July on charges that he abused and trafficked in women and girls in Manhattan and Florida between 2002 and 2005. The search for Maxwell has been the subject of intense speculation, with reported sightings and rumours of her whereabouts popping up across the US and even abroad.

She was arrested in Bradford, New Hampshire, at 8.30am. At a press conference in New York, William Sweeney, assistant director-in-charge of the New York FBI Office, said: “We have been discreetly keeping tabs on Maxwell’s whereabouts.”

He added that authorities had recently learned that Maxwell, “slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire”, continuing to live a “life of privilege”.

Sweeney continued: “We moved when we were ready.”

The 17-page, six-count indictment filed by the Manhattan US attorney charges Maxwell with a host of crimes, including conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, and perjury.

The indictment described Maxwell’s relationship to Epstein as “personal and professional” – and that she was “in an intimate relationship” with him from about 1994 to 1997. Epstein paid Maxwell “to manage their various properties”, the document says.

The court paperwork provides detail into how Maxwell allegedly lured minors into Epstein’s orbit.

According to charging documents, Maxwell “befriended” some of these victims, “including by asking the victims about their lives, their schools, and their families”. She and Epstein forged relationships with these girls, taking them shopping and to the movies. The alleged grooming happened, according to the documents, at Epstein’s mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, his ranch in Sante Fe, New Mexico, as well as Maxwell’s residence in London.

After developing a rapport, the documents allege, “Maxwell would try to normalise sexual abuse for a minor victim by, among other things, discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein”.

The indictment claims that Maxwell would sometimes give Epstein massages in front of victims whereas other times, she urged them to give him massages, “including sexualized massage during which a minor victim would be fully or partially nude.” These would often involve Epstein sexually abusing the minors.

On some occasions, it is alleged Maxwell was “present for and participated in the abuse”.

To hide her involvement with Epstein’s abuse, Maxwell gave false information “under oath” in civil litigation, the indictment claims.

Several of Maxwell’s attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.

Maxwell’s father was the British media baron Robert Maxwell. She was a one-time girlfriend of Epstein’s and key presence at his side in his glittering social life, which often included rich, influential and powerful people from around the world in politics, the arts and science.

Giuffre, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, has said in a civil lawsuit that Maxwell recruited her into Epstein’s circle, where she claims Epstein forced her to have sex with him and friends including Andrew – who has consistently denied the allegations.

His lawyers insist the US Department of Justice has rejected three offers of help volunteered by the prince this year.

Maxwell has said Giuffre’s allegations are untrue. Giuffre in response filed a defamation suit against Maxwell in 2015.

Andrew (second left) has said he became friends with Jeffrey Epstein (right) in 1999, after being introduced to him through Ghislaine Maxwell. Pictured: Melania Trump, Andrew, Epstein's friend Gwendolyn Beck and Epstein at a party at the Mar-a-Lago in Florida in 2000

Prince Andrew is 'bewildered' over lack of response from US justice officials as he and Royal Family brace for new revelations after arrest of Jeffrey Epstein 'pimp' Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell, 58, arrested in US for allegedly helping to lure underage girls

Girls were allegedly abused by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died last August

Arrest will now intensify calls for Andrew to be questioned over any involvement

Andrew has previously claimed he has offered three times to be a witness in case

But US prosecutors say he has declined their request to schedule an interview

By MARK DUELL FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:54, 2 July 2020 | UPDATED: 04:01, 3 July 2020

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8483875/Prince-Andrews-six-month-standoff-FBI-deepens.html

Prince Andrew is said to be 'bewildered' over the lack of response from US justice officials as the Royal Family brace themselves for new revelations after the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell.

Andrew's six-month standoff with the FBI deepened after Maxwell was detained for allegedly helping to lure underage girls who were then sexually abused by Epstein.

Her arrest in Bradford, New Hampshire, will now intensify calls for Andrew to be quizzed about any involvement he may have had, despite him denying wrongdoing.

Andrew has previously claimed he has offered three times to be a witness in the case, but US prosecutors say he has declined their request to schedule an interview.

A source close to the Duke's working group said: 'The Duke's team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month and to-date, we have had no response.' 

Royal author Robert Jobson has suggested Andrew must now be living in fear that Maxwell will implicate him in the 'gruesome' activities of paedophile Epstein.

Mr Jobson who has written several books about the Royal family said that the arrest of Maxwell had to be a ‘cause for concern’ and an ‘embarrassment’ for the Queen’s 60-year-old son. 

‘He keeps protesting his innocence, but her arrest has brought everything more sharply into focus. It is certainly a very worrying development for him,' Mr Jobson said.

‘It is obviously a cause concern for him as nobody knows what she is going to say. She could strike a deal with prosecutors for a lesser sentence in return for implicating others.

‘I would have thought that in order to open up the case, she is going to be asked to name other names. That is where it could become even more difficult for Andrew.

‘If she says anything about him, and she is bound to be asked about him, it could implicate him or cause trouble for him. Whatever happens, it is an embarrassment because she was clearly close to him and there are some pretty gruesome charges against her.

‘If nothing else, it will bring into question his judgment when it comes to friendships as these are pretty unsavoury charges that she faces.’

Maxwell lived for years with Epstein, whose victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre claimed she arranged for her to have sex with the Duke of York at her London townhouse.

Andrew denied her story and claimed last month he was being treated as a second-class citizen by the US justice system, and it was untrue that he had not co-operated.

Gloria Allred, who is based in Los Angeles and represents 16 accusers of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, said the Queen's 60-year-old son must 'contact the FBI immediately'.

She said today: 'The arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell is a major development and demonstrates that the criminal investigation is serious and that it continues.

'It is long overdue for Prince Andrew to stop making excuses and to stop playing the victim. He should contact the FBI immediately and agree to appear for an interview.'

Asked what 58-year-old Maxwell's arrest could now mean for the Duke, a spokesman for his legal team told MailOnline this afternoon: 'We won't be commenting.'

Today, Audrey Strauss, acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said she would 'welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us to have the benefit of his statement' but would not comment further on him in relation to the probe.

Ms Strauss said the FBI would be 'seeking detention' for Maxwell and that her team would be 'in dialogue with the Bureau of Prisons about it'.

When asked if she would be willing to hear evidence from Maxwell concerning others involved despite the perjury charges against her, Ms Strauss said: 'This sometimes happens when there are perjury charges and people can go on from there and become co-operators if that is what you are asking, so I'm not concerned about that.

'In the event that she were to become a co-operator, I think that we can deal with that.'

Andrew has previously said he became friends in 1999 with Epstein - who killed himself in jail last August - after being introduced to him through Maxwell.

The Duke, who stayed at Epstein's house in 2010 after the financier's conviction, said in a disastrous BBC interview last November that he did not regret their friendship.

Epstein and Maxwell were at a party hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle in June 2000, and also attended a party for Maxwell at Sandringham in December that year.  

Royal author Mr Jobson said he believed that the Duchess of York had first introduced Andrew to Ghislaine, the daughter of crooked newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell who plunged to his death from his yacht in mysterious circumstances in 1991.

Ghislaine in turn introduced Andrew to billionaire Epstein who jumped at the chance of ingratiating himself with a member of the Royal family.

Mr Jobson said: ‘Andrew was clearly close to them both. He invited them to Royal enclosure at Ascot and a party hosted by the Queen at Windsor Castle in 2000 as well as a shooting weekend in Sandringham later in the same year.

‘It is the case that Ghislaine has also associated with other members of the Royal family, so people are going to become quite concerned.

‘She has ben in the Royal circle so it becomes more and more embarrassing because it is all getting closer and closer to the Queen.

‘Andrew has tried to distance himself a bit from Epstein and can say that more was made of their friendship than what there actually was, but it was clear that he was still friends with Ghislaine after his friendship with Epstein ended.

‘He was in touch with her long after he severed his ties with Epstein.’

Mr Jobson said Andrew’s closeness to Ghislaine was illustrated by the infamous photograph of him with his arm around 17-year-old Virginia Roberts which was said to have been taken in Ghislaine’s flat in London in 2000.

He said: ‘While some close to Andrew have said the photograph was fabricated, the key problem is that it was allegedly taken at Ghislaine’s home and she is there in the picture lurking in the background.

‘The photograph is being used all the time, so now that she has been charged with procuring under age girls, it has become even more of an embarrassment and potentially damaging for him.’

The US Department of Justice has formally asked the Home Office for help to question the Duke, which could see him grilled in court about his links to Epstein.

But Andrew's lawyers said it was a cynical publicity stunt, accusing US officials of breaking their own rules, telling untruths and trying to mislead the global public.

Today, an indictment claimed Maxwell 'assisted, facilitated and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse' girls under the age of 18.

Mr Jobson who has written books on Prince Charles and Princess Diana also said that Maxwell’s arrest made it an even more distant prospect that Andrew would ever be able to return to public life as a working Royal.

He said: ‘At this moment in time, until this matter is completely cleared up and people are satisfied that he is telling the truth and is completely innocent, as he says he is, there is no way back for him because there is so much hanging over him.

‘It would be impossible for him to carry out his duties. The fact that the whole Epstein saga is now on Netflix and there is a new book about it doesn’t help his case.

‘But I don’t think he is going to put himself in a position where he could be charged. I don’t see him going to America.

‘The only way he can start to clear his name is to present himself for questioning to the FBI. I don’t think his lawyers will want him to do that because it could leave him exposed.

‘It means he is between the devil and the deep blue sea because he can’t expose himself and risk becoming the next central focus of the Epstein inquiry.’

Epstein killed himself in a federal prison in New York last summer while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was accused by women of recruiting them to give Epstein massages, during which they were pressured into sex.

The indictment included counts of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury.

Maxwell has previously repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called some of the claims against her 'absolute rubbish'.

She was described in a lawsuit by another Epstein victim, Sarah Ransome, as the 'highest-ranking employee' of Epstein's alleged sex trafficking ring. The lawsuit claimed she oversaw and trained recruiters, developed recruiting plans and helped conceal activity from police.

The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York will announce charges later today against Maxwell 'for her role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein'.

Federal prosecutors said in court papers she had 'enticed and caused minor victims to travel to Epstein's residence in different states' and that Maxwell would assist in their 'grooming for and subjection to sexual abuse.'

Prosecutors charged that Maxwell was well aware of Epstein's preference for minor girls, and that he intended to sexually abuse them.

Maxwell has kept a low profile since the death of Epstein, a financier who was accused of raping and trafficking underage girls over nearly two decades.

Some of Epstein's alleged victims have said Maxwell lured them into his circle, where they were sexually abused by him and powerful friends. Maxwell was an ex-girlfriend of Epstein who became a longtime member of his inner circle.

Andrew had promised last year, after a disastrous Newsnight interview, to 'help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations' into Epstein.

According to Andrew, the first he heard from the FBI in their 16-year investigation into Epstein was on January 2.

And he was just beginning the process of suggesting how he might answer their questions when, according to his friends, the Americans 'went nuclear'.

On January 27, Geoffrey Berman, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, stood outside Epstein's New York mansion and publicly accused the prince of reneging on his pledge by offering 'zero assistance' to the FBI.

On March 9 he claimed the royal had 'completely shut the door' on cooperating.

But on June 8, as Epstein's victims demanded he 'end the cat and mouse game', Andrew's City law firm Blackfords issued a 604-word statement effectively calling the Americans liars.

It called Mr Berman's claims 'inaccurate' and said it had agreed to cooperate with the Department of Justice on the basis 'our discussions and the interview process would remain confidential', insisting it was given an unequivocal assurance on this point.

Blackfords said: 'The Duke of York has on at least three occasions this year offered his assistance as a witness to the DoJ.

'Unfortunately, the DoJ has reacted to the first two offers by breaching their own confidentiality rules and claiming that the Duke has offered zero cooperation. In doing so, they are perhaps seeking publicity rather than accepting the assistance proffered.'

The statement by Andrew's lawyers continued: 'It is a matter of regret that the DoJ has seen fit to breach its own rules of confidentiality, not least as they are designed to encourage witness cooperation.

'He is being treated by a lower standard than might reasonably be expected for any other citizen. Those same breaches of confidentiality by the DoJ have given the global media - and, therefore, the worldwide audience - an entirely misleading account of our discussions with them.'

But Mr Berman hit back by saying: 'Prince Andrew yet again sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate with an ongoing federal criminal investigation into sex trafficking and related offences committed by Jeffrey Epstein and his associates, even though the prince has not given an interview to federal authorities, has repeatedly declined our request to schedule such an interview, and nearly four months ago informed us unequivocally - through the very same counsel who issued today's release - that he would not come in for such an interview.

'If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him.'

Andrew is being represented by Clare Montgomery, a leading QC in extradition cases. She represented the Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet and also the Swedish state in its 2012 attempt to extradite Julian Assange.

Last month it was also revealed that the DoJ formally applied to the Home Office in May under a 1994 treaty between the two countries to provide Mutual Legal Assistance.

The request from the Americans - a 'diplomatic nightmare' which has yet to be granted, according to Whitehall sources - means Andrew could be forced to answer FBI questions in a British court.

He would in theory be entitled to 'plead the 5th' Amendment, remain silent to avoid incriminating himself.

Asked previously during a Fox News interview whether the US had asked Britain to hand over Andrew, attorney general William Barr said: 'I think it's just a question of having him provide some evidence.' Asked if he would be extradited, Barr replied 'No'.

Gloria Allred, who represents two women treated as sex slaves by the late Epstein, previously said: 'By refusing to voluntarily answer questions posed by law enforcement, Prince Andrew has demonstrated disrespect for the victims and their need to know the truth.

'It is time for the prince to stop this cat and mouse game and stand before the bar of justice'.

Miss Roberts, 36, who claims she was forced to have sex with Andrew three times when she was 17, previously retweeted a comment calling on the Home Office to extradite him to America.

Andrew vehemently denies any wrongdoing and says he does not even recall Miss Roberts.

The Cottagecore Trend.

July 4, 2020, 4:28 am

≫ Next: John Lewis to close several stores as Harrods cuts 700 jobs / Harveys and TM Lewin fall into administration with loss of 800 jobs.

≪ Previous: Prince Andrew under pressure after arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell / Prince Andrew is 'bewildered' over lack of response from US justice officials as he and Royal Family brace for new revelations after arrest of Jeffrey Epstein 'pimp' Maxwell / VIDEO: Ghislaine Maxwell charged over role in Epstein sexual exploitation

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Cottagecore, stemming from online movements including grandmacore, farmcore, goblincore and fairiecore, is an Internet aesthetic which celebrates a return to traditional forms of craft such as foraging, baking and pottery. According to its proponents, the ideas of Cottagecore can help to satisfy a popular desire for "an aspirational form of nostalgia" as well as an escape from many forms of stress and trauma. The New York Times termed it a reaction to hustle culture and the advent of personal branding.

The movement gained further traction in many online spheres and on social media due to the mass quarantining in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, it has been described by The Guardian as a "visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors." It emphasizes simplicity and the soft peacefulness of the pastoral life as an escape from the dangers of the modern world.

Gardening, interacting with farm animals, and dancing with a loved one under the moonlight. These classic cottagecore themes eschew digital connectedness in favor of a connectedness to nature.

— Writer Amelia Hall in The Guardian, 2020

Predecessors and cultural context

While cottagecore as a named movement arose in 2020, prior works have employed similar aesthetics and ideals. Two examples from the early 20th century would be Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows. Both feature a pleasant portrayal of country life, an absence of advanced technology and industry, an appreciation for nature, and turn-of-the-century cottages. Interpersonal interactions within the framework of a close-knit and caring community play a central role in these stories. Characters are often seen baking, gardening, walking in the woods, or engaging in other peaceful, pastoral activities. Most items seen in the stories are handmade, rather than manufactured. While the authors, A. A. Milne and Kenneth Grahame respectively, were familiar with turn-of-the-century rural English life, many of their contemporary and modern readers were not. Thus, these works offer a form of escapism into a calm and comprehensible world. Winnie the Pooh found popularity when first published in part because "the idyllic setting of the 100-Acre Wood was a welcome sanctuary from the horrors of the Western Front that remained fresh in his mind and those of many readers in the 1920s.". The Wind in the Willows likewise focuses its attention on "quieter events."The two series continue to be read and adapted a century later.

The idyllic land of The Shire in J. R. R. Tolkien's works first appeared in The Hobbit in 1937. Its residents occupy themselves with baking and farming, living in small, cozy homes. It is the only set from the film adaptation to be converted into a destination for tourists, with particular attention given to its rustic aesthetics and its proximity to nature.

A more recent ancestor of the genre would be 1970's Frog and Toad, which likewise is set in a small community of rural cottages. The narratives revolve around friends and neighbors interacting in emotionally-supportive ways. The characters regularly engage in domestic activities like sewing and baking, as well social activities such as writing letters and visiting each other's homes. As in Winnie the Pooh and The Wind in the Willows, handmade items are commonplace.

Another series in this vein would be Brambly Hedge, first published in 1980, which presents themes of camaraderie and community against the backdrop of the English countryside. Stakes are typically personal in nature (such as planning a surprise birthday party) and the scope is limited to a small, "idyllic" rural settlement. Unlike The Wind in the Willows, which was set in the time of its writing, Brambly Hedge portrays turn-of-the-century country life in retrospect and so is an example of nostalgia in the genre.

Premiering in 2001, the social simulation video game series Animal Crossing has gameplay centered on crafts like fishing, gardening, and carpentry, as well as cottage upkeep and the building of social relationships in small communities. Because of its release near the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has received considerable praise as a means of self-care for those impacted by social distancing.

In the 2010s, documentary television programs such as Edwardian Farm and to varying degrees the rest of the BBC historic farm series show presenters (themselves often archaeologists or other experts) living and working in cottages for periods as long as a year. Such programs examine the way culture romanticizes cottage life through the lens of anthropology. The shows recreate traditional methods of farming, cooking, foraging, and other activities for a combination of entertainment, education, and experimental archaeology.

The Great British Bake Off, first airing in 2010, regularly features traditional baked goods and baking methods, including some which were more common in historical cottages than they are in modern-day kitchens. The show's outdoor baking tent is meant to evoke the "cultural tradition of afternoon tea on sprawling country homes." Its spin-off series, The Great British Sewing Bee and The Great Pottery Throw Down, take a similar approach to other crafts.

Cottagecore has also become a subculture of the lesbian community, stemming from the thrive for isolation from a hetero-normative society. Videos of cottagecore lesbians performing tasks like baking bread, embroidering, and thrifting to calming music have gone viral on social media app Tiktok. Artists like Hozier (musician), Lord Huron and Mitski often have their rustic and romantic musical style associated with cottagecore.

This article is more than 2 months old

Why is 'cottagecore' booming? Because being outside is now the ultimate taboo

Amelia Hall

This article is more than 2 months old

The visual and lifestyle movement is designed to fetishise the wholesome purity of the outdoors

Amelia Hall

Published onWed 15 Apr 2020 08.24 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/why-is-cottagecore-booming-because-being-outside-is-now-the-ultimate-taboo

Youth movements are always about more than what meets the eye. For example, 1970s first-wave punk wasn’t really just about punk music. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols defined the punk world’s position on harmonics as such: “We’re into chaos, not music.” But it’s not just the appeal of an ideology that sparks a new youth subculture. The most memorable feed off a taboo of the times. In the case of early punk, if the world was tipping toward Thatcher-era conservatism, maybe it was time to put a safety pin in your face and get in the pit.

As expected, there’s a new taboo on the scene, ripe for fetishization. What’s not expected though, is the taboo itself: “The Outside World”. Today, the simple act of being outdoors poses a very real, very mortal threat. So while mindlessly scrolling through Twitter, and encountering collages of young women lying in grass, cradling bunnies, wearing outfits out of Picnic at Hanging Rock – I felt as though I’d found something as illicit as a schedule 2 drug.

The reference here is cottagecore: a visual and lifestyle movement designed to fetishize the wholesome purity of the outdoors, spearheaded by lovely queer teens of TikTok. Gaining initial traction sometime around 2018, its founders imagined and discussed idyllic escape from the endless dopamine trap of digital media and the brutal judgment that accompanied it.

In contrast to the choker-donning eGirl, those worshipping at the church of cottagecore wear traditional, Victorian-inspired dresses – a wholesale dismissal of cyber-inspired everything. Well, not everything – Nintendo’s latest, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, fits perfectly within the calming, pastoral universe imagined by cottagecore devotees.

It’s well-established that most contemporary movements are dependent on social media for growth. So it’s funny that cottagecore is both dependent on it, and simultaneously ignores its existence. It’s easy to understand why. Millennials were the first generation to grow up with the internet, yet Gen Z has led the entirety of their adolescence in a state of constant social media performance. It makes sense that on a foundational level, cottagecore would tap into a taboo familiar to many teens and young adults: To be “disconnected”. To be “unavailable”. To be “off-the-grid”. In 2018, “to be outdoors” was a symbolic act of rebellion. Fast-forward to 2020, and the outdoors are a pipe dream (featuring pink baby lambs, of course).

Gardening, interacting with farm animals, and dancing with a loved one under the moonlight. These classic cottagecore themes eschew digital connectedness in favor of a connectedness to nature. But this isn’t anything new: the movement’s aesthetics are part of a larger visual tradition that peaks in cycles when urban grit, industrialization and the drudgery of daily life demand escape.

In 1854, David Henry Thoreau published Walden, a response to the rapid industrialization he witnessed during his lifetime. In the 1860s, the avant-garde art movement known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood romanticized nature in firm opposition to the utilitarian ethos of industrialized Europe. Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1880s quickly followed in a further attempt to highlight a human touch when machines continued to replace man.

It was assumed that because we’re living in socially distanced, Zoom-mediated reality, our visual tastes might follow suit. Maybe the increasingly outdated Millennial Aesthetic of the 2010s (frosted pink, potted fig trees, sparkling terrazzo) would give way to something hyper-digital – referencing the synthetic-ness of a life spent online. But to hold up a mirror to our current situation would be too simple. Perhaps the more apt reference is a window into a rarified reality. We revere what we can’t have, and today that looks a lot like what cottagecore celebrates: a taste of nature, the human hand and an aesthetic that soothes us to our very core. Visual ASMR, anyone? Perhaps we could do with some baby lambs right about now.

Amelia Hall is a Brand Strategist working at Deutsch LA. She’s also a contributor to Clickbait.la — an occasional internet culture journal

David Beckham leads the way as men flock to 'cottagecore' look

Latest trend conveys ‘a more romanticised ideal of masculinity’, says fashion professor

Priya Elan

Published onFri 3 Jul 2020 13.10 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jul/03/david-beckham-leads-the-way-as-men-flock-to-cottagecore-look

He took sarongs, bleach-blond locks and all leather outfits into the mainstream, but can David Beckham do the same to the latest trend for whimsical outdoor living: “cottagecore”?

During lockdown, Beckham’s Instagram account has featured him in some distinct poses. With a scythe in hand against a bucolic sky with a field in the background, he’s usually wearing a flat cap, corduroys and a woolly cardigan or jumper. Sometimes he’s wading through fields in his Hunter wellies and trenchcoat and he’s even filmed himself building a beehive in a V-neck smock top. At another time Beckham channelling what could be mistaken for Tory chic from his Cotswold’s home may have sounded an uneasy note, but right now it strikes a chord with the fantasy of agrarian life that is part of cottagecore.

“As we emerge from lockdown, men are embracing cottagecore as a means to convey a more romanticised ideal of masculinity,” says Andrew Groves, a professor of fashion design at the University of Westminster. Here, he says, Beckham has idealised the agricultural worker and reimagined himself “as the gamekeeper from Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.

The trend, which began in 2017 on social media sites like Tumblr and TikTok, combines lifestyle with fashion. It is about a yearning for the romantic sheen of rural life expressed in part through the look of the 1970s (lace trimmings and denim) – Laura Ashley reimagined by newer labels like the Vampire’s Wife and Batsheva .

During lockdown it has increased in popularity. “For those who felt trapped in their apartments in the grimy, crowded city, it made sense to start daydreaming about pastoral settings, where one could be cosy and feel free from disease,” says fashion historian Andrew Luecke. Cottagecore activities like baking, gardening and making your own clothes have all boomed during the pandemic.

Now, menswear is taking note. Searches for the staples that make up so-called “granddad style” have increased: flat caps (monthly searches are at 27,100 according to Digitaloft.co.uk), cardigans (40,500) and smocks (74,000).

Harry Styles’ multi-coloured chunky patchwork cardigan by JW Anderson has become a cottagecore challenge, with users on TikTok attempting to knit their own versions, resulting in the hashtag #harrystylescardigan. Styles has also been seen wearing a yellow daisy shirt from New York label Bode, a sustainable designer whose autumn/winter collection was the first cottagecore line. It had a strong animal/ agriculture theme, set in a community garden and featuring gardening gloves, animal prints (cow, sheep) with a heavy focus on embroidery and crocheted items.

Similarly designers like Virgil Abloh used his spring/summer 2020 menswear collection to focus on the idyllic outdoors with patterns featuring anemones and pansies and gardening boots.

Cottagecore for men could be seen as a natural branch of both the utility-led “gorpcore” trend (outdoor clothes for people who don’t go out) and the acid ramblers scene. “Those original 90s ravers are now to be found on the moors, both rambling and raving,” says Groves, “wearing a mixture of cords, knitwear and country smocks.” In that sense, he believes cottagecore is a trend that “is only going to become more prominent over the coming years.”

John Lewis to close several stores as Harrods cuts 700 jobs / Harveys and TM Lewin fall into administration with loss of 800 jobs.

July 6, 2020, 1:11 am

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John Lewis to close several stores as Harrods cuts 700 jobs

John Lewis staff unlikely to receive 2021 bonus because of coronavirus crisis

Sarah Butler

 @whatbutlersaw

Wed 1 Jul 2020 12.27 BSTLast modified on Wed 1 Jul 2020 12.50 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/01/john-lewis-to-close-several-stores-as-harrods-cuts-700-jobs-coronavirus?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0nHcCcIc2UeUB7DTpbK-D24Zq_VsI1Ey6ceuAnKwqjNWDUMUuAdMcYnfk#Echobox=1593603263

Harrods says ‘necessary social distancing requirements to protect employees and customers is having a huge impact on our ability to trade’. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images

John Lewis has confirmed it is to close a number of its shops and Harrods is cutting 700 jobs as department stores reel from the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter to the retailer’s staff, the John Lewis chairman, Sharon White, also said the store chain is to shut down a London office and will probably ditch the annual bonus paid to all staff, which is regarded as a key part of the employee-owned group’s culture.

Harrods has told its staff that one in seven of its 4,800 staff would be affected by job cuts because of the “ongoing impacts of this pandemic”.

In a note to Harrods staff, the chief executive, Michael Ward, blamed the cuts on social distancing and lack of tourists: “The necessary social-distancing requirements to protect employees and customers is having a huge impact on our ability to trade, while the devastation in international travel has meant we have lost key customers coming to our store and frontline operations.”

Jobs in parts of the store that remain closed, including beauty services and cafes, are expected to be among those to go.

The John Lewis chairman told staff the retailer was in talks with some of its landlords about “ending some leases” and was trying to renegotiate the terms of some others. White said the closures would mean job losses and also warned that the group is highly unlikely to pay a bonus next year as it hoards cash.

White had warned previously that John Lewis might not reopen all of its stores. However, in a letter to staff first reported by the Evening Standard, she confirmed the plans. The shops likely to close were not named.

The group, which also owns the Waitrose chain, has reopened 22 of its 50 department stores since non-essential retailers were given the green light to restart on 15 June. Plans to open a further 10 were announced today, including Oxford Street in London on 16 July. The group has confirmed that more outlets will reopen in future. A handful are expected to be closed permanently.

In the letter, White said: “The difficult reality is that we have too much store space for the way people want to shop now. As difficult as it is, we now know that it is highly unlikely that we will reopen all our John Lewis stores. Regrettably, it is likely that there will implications for some [staff members’] jobs.”

John Lewis said no final decision had been made and any details would be shared with staff by the middle of July.

She said that trade had not been as bad as feared but the company needed to act to preserve cash as it expected trading to be tougher in the coming month. “There is clearly a lot of uncertainty but as things stand, it is hard to see the circumstances where we will be able to pay a bonus next year. I know this will be a blow for partners who have made sacrifices these past months,” White wrote.

M Lewin folds At the opposite end of the retail scale, shirt maker TM Lewin – a top 250 retailer in the RXUK Top 500 – has also announced that it is withdrawing from the high street, closing all 66 of its stores and moving operations online. In a statement, Resolve, which has been hired to restructure the retailer, said: "This acquisition secured the future of the brand at a time of unprecedented uncertainty within the retail sector. After considerable review, and due to the many issues currently being experienced by high street retailers, it has been determined that the future of the TM Lewin brand will be online-only." The shirt makers assets have been sold to Torque Brands – and investment company set up by Simba Sleep co-founder James Cox and backed by Allan Leighton, former Asda CEO and Paul Taylor, who previously ran Harrods – in a pre-pack deal, which doesn’t include the retailer’s stores. TM Lewin will be added to Torque’s growing stable of failing retail brands the company is looking to purchase and roll out globally as online-only retailers. Torque plans to take brands that have cache, but which are financially too insecure to survive the COVID-19 crash, and run them more economically by using the same IT, manufacturing and distribution systems to reap economies of scale. A spokesman for Torque says: “The decision to significantly reduce the scale of the business in order to preserve its future will regrettably result in job losses as a direct result of the closing of the store network as we right-size the business." Currently 650 of TM Lewin’s 700 staff are on the government-funded furlough. It is thought some 600 will lose their jobs. https://internetretailing.net/industry/industry/john-lewis-tm-lewin-close-high-street-stores-and-ramp-up-online-while-mco-seeks-a-buyer-21643

Harveys and TM Lewin fall into administration with loss of 800 jobs

A further 1,300 jobs are at risk as more high street chains succumb to Covid-19 pandemic

Tue 30 Jun 2020 16.47 BSTFirst published on Tue 30 Jun 2020 14.12 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/30/harveys-falls-into-administration-with-loss-of-240-jobs

Furniture chain Harveys and shirt maker TM Lewin have both called in administrators on another bleak day for UK retailers, with the immediate loss of more than 800 jobs and more than 1,300 others at risk.

The collapse of the two familiar retail names is another blow for high streets already reeling from the closure of a number of of Debenhams outlets and the collapse of fashion retailers Cath Kidston, Laura Ashley, Oasis and Warehouse.

Scottish retail chain M&Co, which employs 2,700 people at 262 stores, has appointed advisers from Deloitte to consider options for the business, including a possible sale via a pre-pack administration, as first reported by Sky News on Tuesday.

Shirt maker TM Lewin, which has not reopened any stores since the lockdown on “non essential” retailers was lifted earlier this month, said all 66 of its outlets would be permanently closing with the loss of about 600 jobs, after the group called in administrators on Tuesday.

Administrators from PwC are seeking a buyer for about 20 Harveys stores and its three manufacturing sites. But 240 redundancies were made immediately at the chain and more than 1,300 jobs may go if a buyer cannot be found.

All its stores will continue to trade for now, but industry watchers believe a buyer is unlikely to materialise. The retailer has been struggling for years and is also heavily reliant on sister chain Bensons for Beds, with which it shares several sites.

Bensons was also put into administration on Tuesday. However, it has been bought out in a prearranged deal by its private equity owner Alteri Investors, with the aim of saving between 150 and 175 of the chain’s 242 stores, its Huntingdon manufacturing operation, and nearly 1,900 jobs.

The buyout involves new investment of £25m into Bensons by Alteri. All current Harveys and Bensons orders will be honoured by the ongoing business.

If you have been affected or have any information, we'd like to hear from you. You can get in touch by filling in the form below, anonymously if you wish or contact us via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding the contact +44(0)7867825056. Only the Guardian can see your contributions and one of our journalists may contact you to discuss further.

Zelf Hussain, joint administrator at PwC, said: “The group had been facing increasingly challenging trading conditions in recent months, in particular the Harveys furniture business. This has resulted in cashflow pressures, exacerbated by the effects of coronavirus on the supply chain and customer sales. It has not been possible to secure further investment to continue to trade the group in its current form.”

Harveys and Bensons’ parent group appointed administrators from PwC on Tuesday morning after a tough period of trading for furniture retailers, which were suffering from a slowdown in the housing market and low consumer confidence even before the government-imposed high street shutdown forced them to temporarily close stores in March.

“The restructuring, whilst obviously difficult for Harveys’ employees, will safeguard more than half the group’s workforce and is a necessary milestone on Bensons’ journey to becoming a market-leading beds retailer with a strong omnichannel presence,” said Gavin George, the chief executive of Alteri.

“We will continue to work closely with the management team on the turnaround of the business which we believe can have a bright future, despite the challenges facing the retail industry, including the long-term impact of the coronavirus pandemic.”

Alteri bought Harveys, which was founded in 1966, and Bensons, which has been in business for 70 years, in November last year.

TM Lewin owner Stonebridge Private Equity, whose vehicle Torque Brands took over TM Lewin in May, has bought back the brand’s remaining assets, including its online business, in a pre-pack deal.

Stonebridge said it had formed the view that TM Lewin was no longer a viable going concern in its current format.

The group did not reopen stores last month as the company said it relied on services such as measuring which were not possible to deliver with physical distancing.

“The business is unable to sustain current rental agreements for its store network across the country. With all stores still remaining closed due to social distancing guidelines, our customers have been unable to shop in store for the past three-plus months; this has forced our hands to focus on a radical overhaul of the business model, rebuilding from the ground up in a fashion we deem fit for the years to come,” Torque said in a statement.

Thousands of job losses were announced in other sectors too this week, including:

Up to 700 jobs at Harrods

About 600 workers at shirtmaker TM Lewin

Up to 900 jobs at management consulting firm Accenture

300 roles at Virgin Money, Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank

1,700 UK jobs at plane-maker Airbus

And 1,300 crew and 727 pilots at EasyJet

WH Smith, Bensons for Beds, Wrights Pies, tableware-maker Steelite International, the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool and Norwich Theatre Royal have also announced plans to reduce staff.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53270679?at_custom4=863D7F8E-BC85-11EA-8458-2AD5FCA12A29&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64&at_custom2=facebook_page&at_medium=custom7&at_custom3=BBC+News&fbclid=IwAR2ujC7uyJXenrsXZiANxoTifgbqAEinFxuTeYslX_AoYLVTAF_g9U8W194

The 500-year-old mystery of Christopher Columbus - BBC REEL

July 8, 2020, 1:59 am

≫ Next: GANT bio based Sustainability- It's complicated but not impossible

≪ Previous: John Lewis to close several stores as Harrods cuts 700 jobs / Harveys and TM Lewin fall into administration with loss of 800 jobs.

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For centuries, Christopher Columbus has been celebrated as the brave explorer who 'found' the New World. But, his treatment of indigenous communities has often been left out of the history books. As awareness grows, many of his statues are being torn down.

Now, a new DNA analysis might help researchers

GANT bio based Sustainability- It's complicated but not impossible

July 8, 2020, 8:55 pm

≫ Next: The Crown to be extended for sixth season on Netflix

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GANT Sustainability We have set the following three targets: 100% of our cotton will be sustainably sourced by 2022. All conventional cotton will be replaced with more sustainable alternatives such as Better Cotton Initiative, organic cotton, recycled cotton, regenerative cotton and transitional cotton. By 2030, we will only source cotton through the best available farming practices at hand to support our overall vision. 100% of our key materials will be sustainably sourced by 2025 by converting all key materials from conventional to more sustainable. https://www.gant.co.uk/sustainability/product

Our vision is to make the world a more beautiful place. In keeping with GANT’s belief that we should Never Stop Learning, we’ve adopted a philosophy of creating products that are premium, preppy, timeless and designed to have a long life. To celebrate our heritage of being a bio-based business, we will continue to source traceable and sustainable plant-based materials globally. This is how we can educate ourselves and act on our ethical, environmental and social responsibilities. GANT will be a brand known and loved for improving waterways in the world. We believe this conscious, sustainable approach to designing beautiful products is the future of good business.

 GANT is a Swiss clothing brand of American heritage launched in New Haven in 1949. The brand has since then been further developed, being influenced by European styles, and is now a global clothing business. Gant's products are available from retailers and at signature Gant stores throughout the world, and offer clothing for men, women, boys, girls and babies. Home, Time, Fragrance, Footwear, Underwear and Eyewear licenses are also incorporated under the Gant brand name. By 31 January 2008, Maus Frères S.A. of Switzerland, had acquired 95.6% of the Gant Company AB shares, which completed the take-over.

The beginning of Gant

Bernard Gantmacher arrived in New York in 1914, an immigrant from Ukraine. He went straight to the garment district in Manhattan and secured his first job as a collar-sewing specialist in a downtown factory. A few years later, he met his future wife, a button and buttonhole specialist who worked for the same company. Their sons, Marty and Elliot, along with a cousin, started a family business in New Haven, CT, acting as a subcontractor, manufacturing shirts. GANT is pronounced GJANT.

1941 to 1948

Mark Zumerch sold fine shirts to respected private labels in America, including Manhattan Shirts, J. Press and Brooks Brothers. Captain Marty Gant mustered out of the air force in 1945. Drawn to the family business, his brother Elliot quit the Navy and joined him in 1947. They continued sales to other companies, but a small “G” sitting next to the union on the shirt showed the manufacturer.

The 1900s

Gant dress shirts were de rigueur for American male students in the early and mid 1960s. The shirts were worn open-collar and without necktie, with the top button open to reveal the roll of the collar, except when the formality of an occasion demanded otherwise. The front of the shirt buttoned along a double-truck hem, a feature that became absolutely requisite for any brand targeted at adolescents and young men. Other manufacturers offered similar product, but only Sero, another premium-priced line, matched the Gant style, differentiating its shirts from the former solely by omission of the distinctive Gant loop at the top of the back pleat, and sometimes dispensing with the double pleat down the center back in favor of single pleats on the back shoulders. Sero was considered to be the only alternative truly equivalent in prestige to Gant in the youth market. All other brands, for whatever reason, clearly identified themselves as knockoffs by failing to precisely conform to the Gant cut. Beginning in the spring of 1964, Gant participated in the Madras craze, offering shirts in both the proprietary Gant cut and other styles.

Launching an American sportswear brand

Gant’s initial customer was the Paul Stuart store in New York City. The first shirts created offered button-down collars with sportswear fabrics. These were considered ‘preppy’ and sold well in college shops all over the USA. The Gant approach was to sell through the most prestigious store in town. If they weren’t accepted immediately, they waited. And, after a difficult first year, sales took off.[citation needed] Advertising was concentrated in upscale publications such as The New Yorker.

Further growth

As Gant became known as a designer label in the US, it began opening shops in a number of department stores across the country. At one point in the 60’s, Gant was the second-largest shirt maker in the world. The Gant family sold the business in 1967. Since then, the company has changed hands several times. In 1979, Gant Corporation became a subsidiary of apparel manufacturer The Palm Beach Company.In 1980/1981, Gant entered the international market when Pyramid Sportswear of Sweden was given the right to design and market the Gant brand outside the U.S. Initially, Pyramid only offered the Gant label in Sweden but quickly expanded internationally. In 1995, Phillips-Van Heusen acquired the Gant brand in the U.S. from bankrupt Crystal Brands, Inc. of Connecticut, a sportswear manufacturer. In November, 2010 - Gant recently returned home to New Haven when it opened a new retail store located on the corner of Broadway and York.

Gant AB of Sweden

PVH sold its Gant operations in 1999 to Pyramid Sportswear of Sweden, in which PVH held a 25% stake, for $71.000. Ironically, as the brand's international licensee, Pyramid had already opened a Gant flagship store on New York's Fifth Avenue in 1997. Pyramid Sportswear, which was to become Gant Pyramid AB, eventually turned Gant into a global brand. In the spring of 2006, Gant became a public company and was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange’s O-List until it was delisted March 20 and bought by Maus Frères. For the fiscal year 2006, Gant Pyramid AB reported total revenues of SEK 1,295 billion (ca. US-$ 167.7 mio) and a net income of SEK 162.6 million (ca. US-$ 23.6 mio). As of 2007, Gant is established in 73 countries and their products are available at select retailers and 298 Gant stores worldwide, 18 of which are directly operated by Gant AB. The company plans to open another 60 stores in the course of the year and to re-open its renovated Fifth Avenue store in September 2007. The Gant fashion collections are subdivided into the main line G.N.H. (Gant New Haven), the younger RUGGER sportswear line and the more trendy 'GANT By Michael Bastian' collection. The 'Yale Co-op' line just include some classic Yale shirts. Gant have also a Kids line, as well as Home, Fragrance, Eyewear and Time.

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The Crown to be extended for sixth season on Netflix

July 9, 2020, 9:30 pm

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Imelda Staunton will take over as the Queen in the fifth series. Photograph: AP

The Crown to be extended for sixth season on Netflix

Royal drama was due to end after series five but show’s creator says it will continue

Sarah Marsh

@sloumarsh

Published onThu 9 Jul 2020 18.45 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jul/09/the-crown-to-be-extended-sixth-season-netflix

The critically acclaimed royal drama The Crown will not abdicate just yet: the Netflix production that was due to end after the fifth series is to be extended for another season.

The show’s creator and writer, Peter Morgan, has confirmed it will continue, after fans were left disappointed that more episodes were not on the cards.

In January fans were told the show, watched by more than 73m households worldwide, would end with series five, but Morgan has now said that to do justice to the “richness and complexity” of the story he will “go back to the original plan and do six seasons”.

He said: “To be clear, series six will not bring us any closer to present day – it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail.”

The sixth and final season will go into the early 2000s, but the number of episodes or exact storylines it will cover is not yet known.

The fourth series of the drama, featuring Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and Olivia Colman returning as the Queen, airs later this year, and will include the introduction of Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Emma Corrin.

Cindy Holland, Netflix’s vice-president of original content, said: “The Crown keeps raising the bar with each new season. We can’t wait for audiences to see the upcoming fourth season, and we’re proud to support Peter’s vision and the phenomenal cast and crew for a sixth and final season.”

In January Netflix announced that Imelda Staunton would take over the role of the Queen from Colman in the fifth series. Colman replaced Claire Foy to make her debut as the monarch in the third series, which launched in November 2019.

The Phantom Thread star Lesley Manville will play Princess Margaret in the fifth series, following in the footsteps of Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter in the role of the Queen’s sister.

At the time when the series was curtailed to five series, it was speculated that this meant it would not include contemporary problems faced by the royal family, including the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step down from royal duties.

While The Crown was critically acclaimed in its first two series and won further awards for its third, some of the excitement around it seemed to have waned. It did not appear in a list Netflix published of its most-watched shows of 2019 in the UK.

But the award-winning show, one of the most popular on Netflix, has been described as part of the “global cultural zeitgeist” by Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix. The cast from season three won the Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble in a drama series, and Colman won the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama series. The Crown has so far won 144 award nominations.

Earlier this year, Sarandos praised the series, saying: “Thanks to creator and writer Peter Morgan and a phenomenal cast and crew, the show’s popularity grows with each new season and, as the recent SAG and Golden Globe Awards demonstrate, its quality remains unsurpassed.”

‘282 Portobello Road’ / VIDEO:London reopening 2020 | Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill

July 13, 2020, 3:01 am

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info@282portobello.london https://www.282portobello.london/ 282 Portobello Road W10 5TE Londen      Co-owners Claudia Vispi and Paul Caren are style veterans.      282 provide classic quality vintage while focusing on English sartorial elegance.      Leather, tweed, fur, recycled wax, tail coats, ballgowns, and quality footwear. A range of new         English handmade fur felt hats and tweed caps also stocked.     Styling and etiquette is all part of the 282 experience.

IN CONVERSATION: Claudia Vispi, co-founding owner of ‘282 Portobello Road’

http://www.itsrudetostare.com/in-conversation-claudia-vispi-co-founding-owner-of-282-portobello-road/

In the myriad of shops and stalls in Portobello Road, there is nothing quite like the one situated below the Westway.  With its enticing cerise shop front and prêt-a-porter vintage on display, you are immediately transported into a portal of sartorial history.  Aptly named 282, after the door number on the iconic street, the shop has recently become a haven for collectors, design houses, dandies, debutants, and everyone else in between; all after that one-of-a-kind piece for all occasions.

It’s Rude To Stare recently sat down with co-founder Claudia Vispi for an engaging conversation about fashion and inspiration. Wearing the finest Edwardian night-gown, Vispi invited me in to her flat in London’s Chelsea, placed the Jack-Russell on her lap, poured us both a warm leafy tea and continued as such…

What is the concept behind 282?

It was a natural evolution from our previous project; we’ve always made something beautiful out of nothing. By ‘we’, I mean myself and my business partner Paul Caren, we made beautiful garments out of natural, recycled fabrics.  We’d use odd fabrics for simple silhouettes. The hunt for those fabrics would inevitably lead us to find other wildly beautiful things, and here we are with the boots, the leather and the fur, the tweed, the Gentry style.

And may I ask, what is the fascination with the English history, and adherence to British style?

Well, it probably stems from my surroundings, something as very simple as being born in Chelsea to Italian parents, you know? I totally absorb my environment. I spent a lot of my youth just hanging out in the V&A, developing an eye for beauty.

Was there ever a particular time when you were consciously aware of the impact that clothes make?

I was very lucky enough, growing up, to be living next to the most incredible people. It was the punk era, and they were musicians, producers, lyricists, and though I was too young to be a punk, I found it utterly fascinating. I used to get a thrill from watching them. And then there was New-Wave after that; so music was my first influence. This period in particular, when it was all happening and everything became more expressive. I was VERY lucky, in fact.

Was there anyone in particular that stands out from that period that has inspired you in any way?

Oh, without a doubt, Viv. I mean, you know? The design is an art form; I’m talking about the early days of Vivienne Westwood. The clothes had feeling, it was fantastic. See, that’s cutting-edge as opposed to classic, but what I do now is put classic things on cutting-edge people. When you place clothes out of context, it makes for sublime style.

And who are your regular clientele?

The fabulous, the rich in life, the fearless, the individual, the creative; from rock-stars to Earls, they all stop by.

What was the last thing that made you stop and stare?

I don’t know if I can answer that, I see amazing things all the time. In restaurants, in my shop as they come in, the wonderful people of the Portobello Road. It doesn’t often happen, but I like it when I’m shocked. Like when I see an upstanding member of the community being rather louche. It happens often. Other than that, it’s usually the  beautiful things that come across my eyes every day.

282 Portobello Road

London, W10

Hours:

Monday – Sunday

12pm-5pm

                        

The Laco B-Uhr – A Flieger Watch Review

July 14, 2020, 1:12 pm

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There are some watch designs that not only stand the test of time, but in the case of war, also transcend their original context to become a classic. Such a watch, the B-Uhr, the offspring of Germany and Switzerland’s leading watchmakers, has a noted history of design and production, but was employed for an infamous cause. The B-Uhren watches guided German bombers in their terrible campaigns of World War II with dropped bombs whistling through air to end in devastating consequence. The B-Uhr remains a formidable watch.

https://monochrome-watches.com/the-history-of-the-pilot-watch-part-five-b-uhr/

In 1935, Adolf Hitler announced his plans to reconstitute Germany’s Air Force and officially created the Luftwaffe. Germany had been building its aviation forces, decidedly military in purpose and in violation of WWI’s Versailles Treaty, but this buildup had proceeded ostensibly for civilian purposes. With his power consolidated, Hitler shrugged off all pretense and announced Germany’s resumption of military procurement. Prior to 1935, the Heinkel He 111 bomber supposedly existed as a transport plane just as the National Socialist Party supposedly sought to establish peace and prosperity. Though few (including watchmakers) knew it at the time, Germany was preparing for war.

Schematic-WFThe RLM (Reichs-Luftfahrtministerium), responsible for aircraft development, also sought a commensurate time piece for its bomber navigators. The 1935 conceptual designs first specified an hour angle indication like the Lindbergh watch (see here), but this specification was dropped, and standard criteria emerged, making the B-Uhr instantly recognizable.

These watches were big. 55mm big. The size accommodated large hand-wound movements typically used in pocket watches, but the B-Uhr was always to be a watch for the wrist. Each one used a Breguet balance spring. Inside, the movement was surrounded by an iron core, making the B-Uhr anti-magnetic – a must for aviation. To correct for time discrepancies, the movements were capable of stopping the central seconds hand by pulling the crown, or hacking, and the oversized diamond or onion crown could be operated with gloves on the hand. A very long, double-riveted leather strap, long enough to go over the leather flight jacket, held the B-Uhr in place.

The large size made them unambiguously legible and their black dials with white Arabic numerals further aided the task of precise reading. The flame-blued sword hands were covered in luminous material as was the distinguishing upwards-orientation triangle or arrow at the twelve o’clock position, accompanied by two dots on the Type A models. The initial Type A model had only an outer chapter ring, but the later type B (starting in 1941) had an outer ring for minutes/seconds and an inner ring for hours. Each case had FL23883 engraved on the left side. FL designated flieger, and 23 identified the watch as a navigation watch. The snap-off case back had the following identifying information on its inside: type (Bauart), production number (Gerät-Nr.), movement (Werk-Bez.), order number (Anforderz), and manufacturer (Hersteller). The RLM and its partner watch manufacturers produced a novel design, which would attain cult status.

B-Uhren is an abbreviation for Beobachtungs-uhren, literally Observation watches. B-Uhr is singular, and B-Uhren is plural. The B-Uhren were property of the Luftwaffe, not the navigators. The navigator was issued his watch before flight, and then returned the watch after completing the mission. Navigators received a signal beep from the airbase, which in turn set its chronometer to the standard time of the German Naval Observatory (Deutsche Seewarte), and if the navigator’s time was off, the hacking mechanism allowed for adjustment. An accurate watch was necessary for navigation, so all the B-Uhren watches were regulated and tested to the highest chronometer standards of the Deutsche Seewarte in Hamburg. Bomber navigators peered over the navigation table, their B-Uhren at the ready, and plotted course, copied astronomical fixes and noted events on the map. The B-Uhr was a consummate navigational aid.

Five manufacturers – four German and one Swiss – supplied the B-Uhren. In Germany, A. Lange & Söhne, Wempe, Lacher & Company/Durowe (Laco), and Walter Storz (Stowa) produced the watch. Wempe and Stowa used Swiss movements; Wempe settled on the Thommen cal. 31, and Stowa used the Unitas cal. 2812. Lange used its big cal. 48 and then its cal. 48.1, and Laco used its (Durowe) cal. 5 – the only two companies to use in-house German movements. When Wempe purchased the Chronometerwerk in Hamburg in 1938, it gained a significant increase in production capacity, and to assist the limited production faced by Lange and Laco, Wempe assembled watches for them. To meet demand, Lange also sent ébauches and cases to a variety of other manufacturers for assembly and regulation. In smaller numbers, the Swiss International Watch Company IWC who supplied watches to both Axis and Allied forces, manufactured the B-Uhr (cal. 52T S.C.) for the Luftwaffe. These five companies were the only ones to make the B-Uhr.

Today, the available Lange or Wempe B-Uhren are vintage watches from the war, and if you can find one, they come with hefty price tags. IWC’s Big Pilot watch is an evolution from the B-Uhr, having its predecessor’s DNA, but sporting an adapted design. This is a watch made for aviation, and as such, retains an anti-magnetic feature – the only current watch to do so. Unlike its no-frills B-Uhr predecessor, the Big Pilot elevates the navigational concept to a higher echelon of quality and function, providing a luxury timepiece (see here).

Stowa, now owned by watchmaker Jörg Schauer, offers a nice homage to the B-Uhr in a dressier version (see here). The case is polished, the movement decorated, visible through a transparent case back, and the 40mm size is the smallest of this group. They also offer a date window option. Stowa makes a fine watch, but be prepared to wait for its arrival – demand far exceeds production.

Laco offers a wide range of movement choices, providing a greater range of affordability, but its watches featuring ETA and hand winding movements are the watches of note. In these, Laco produces what might be termed a reproduction, having carefully recreated the design of the original watch down to the smallest detail, from the dial design to the FL23883 engraved on the case’s side to the inner case back information ingeniously moved to the outside. These Laco watches measure 42mm and 45mm (see here). Both Stowa and Laco offer flame blued hands, sapphire crystal, riveted leather straps, superb luminosity and Type A and B models. Of the original manufacturers, IWC, Stowa and Laco each offer a contemporary B-Uhr choice.

Burberry to cut 500 jobs worldwide in £55m cost-saving drive

July 15, 2020, 10:27 pm

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Burberry to cut 500 jobs worldwide in £55m cost-saving drive

Plan, which includes 150 UK head office posts, comes as sales slump in Covid-19 crisis

Sarah Butler

@whatbutlersaw

Wed 15 Jul 2020 09.07 BSTLast modified on Wed 15 Jul 2020 11.18 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jul/15/burberry-to-cut-500-jobs-worldwide-in-55m-cost-cutting-drive-covid-19

Burberry employs 3,500 people in the UK.

Burberry is to cut 500 jobs worldwide, including 150 in its UK head offices, to slash costs by £55m after a slump in sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

Retail sales dived by 48% in the three months to the end of June, including a 75% fall in Europe and the Middle East, as countries closed shops and offices and severely limited travel to control the spread of Covid-19. Sales in the UK were particularly hard hit, with tourists staying away and stores remaining closed for longer than in Europe and Asia.

In the UK, where Burberry employs 3,500 people, the company said it would keep its headquarters in both Leeds and central London but would be cutting head office roles across numerous departments. It said jobs in stores and manufacturing were safe.

Outside the UK, no stores will close but the company said it wanted to “improve retail efficiency” with fewer staff in stores and cut back office space, with a shift to working from home in some areas.

Julie Brown, the chief operating officer of Burberry, said the company was also keeping its portfolio of 13 stores in Hong Kong “under review” after sales were hit by pro-democracy protests, followed by coronavirus. The territory now accounts for less than 3% of Burberry’s sales, down from 8%.

Burberry said it wanted to reinvest the savings in marketing activities including pop-up stores, digital campaigns, events and improved store displays.

The £55m savings drive comes on top of £140m of cost cuts already announced.

Brown said the company would be closing some offices outside the UK as it realised that staff could work just as well from home. She said: “One of the good things that has come out of covid is ways of working differently.”

The luxury British brand, best known for its trenchcoats and signature check, had previously cancelled its end-of-year payment to shareholders, worth about £120m last year, and has borrowed £300m via the UK government-backed business support scheme.

The 500 jobs being axed represent about 5% of the group’s global workforce. The restructuring, which will pool expertise within three new business units covering ready-to-wear, accessories and shoes, will lead to one-off costs of £45m.

Marco Gobbetti, the chief executive, said: “We are sharpening our focus on product and making other organisational changes to increase our agility and generate structural savings that we will be able to reinvest into consumer-facing activities to further strengthen our luxury positioning.”

The company said tourist travel, which generates strong sales for luxury goods companies, was “likely to remain negligible” for the time being while some stores remained closed or operating with reduced hours under coronavirus lockdown restrictions around the world.

Burberry said sales in established stores slid by 20% in June and it expected trading in the three months to the end of September to show a similar decline of 15% to 20%.

Gobbetti said: “Sales were severely impacted by the drop in luxury demand from Covid-19 and we expect it will take time to return to pre-crisis levels with the resumption of overseas travel.”

Experience: I found a fortune in a charity shop

July 18, 2020, 12:03 am

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Experience: I found a fortune in a charity shop

I picked up a copy of The Hobbit for 50p and started reading it on the train to work. Then a colleague said it might be worth something

Andy Hewson: ‘I was thinking, even if I make 500 quid, it would still be amazing.’

Andy Hewson

Published onFri 10 Jul 2020 10.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/10/experience-i-found-a-fortune-in-a-charity-shop

I work for a charity in central London, and in 2012 there was an animal welfare charity shop near my office called Paws. I’d go in there in my lunch break, mostly to chat to Michelle, the friendly lady who ran the shop. There was always loads of stuff in there: I guess to Michelle it was organised chaos. You’d see the same people come and sit in there every day for a bit of company. It was a real community hub.

I was there one day when a hippy couple started unloading a camper van of hundreds of books. I noticed a copy of The Hobbit. Weirdly, I’d bought a new copy a few weeks previously because I wanted to read it again before the film came out, but I’d lost it. I thought: oh, that’s lucky, I can carry on reading it now. Underneath it was a slightly racy cartoon magazine from the 70s, which I picked up for an artist friend. Michelle said I could have the two for a pound.

It was a nice book. The dust jacket had an illustration of trees and mountains in blue, green and black with Tolkien’s name beneath. I started reading it on the train back and forth to work. I’m not a fast reader so I was still getting through it a month or so later when, as I was leaving work, a woman from our finance team came up to me, having spotted it in my hand. She said it looked old and that I should look into whether it was worth anything.

I ended up down an internet hole looking at first editions of The Hobbit. I learned that there were 1,500 copies printed in the first run in 1937. You can check if you have one by looking for the reference to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll – printed in notes about the novel on the dust jacket. On the first edition, the name was misspelled as “Dodgeson” and had to be hand-corrected by the publishers. I checked the back and found the crossed-out e.

I was thinking, “This can’t be.” As luck would have it, my girlfriend Jenna was working as an event coordinator at Christie’s at the time, so she put me in contact with a specialist in the books department. I talked him through the details and I remember him saying, “I think you might have a very valuable book on your hands.”

I wrapped it in a pair of pants, put it inside a sandwich bag and took it in to show him. He asked me what I thought it was worth. I’d done my research and said that I was hoping for about £7,000. He agreed that was a good estimate.

I had to wait four months for an auction. It ended up happening a few weeks before The Hobbit film came out, so there was a lot of interest. The auction started at 2.30pm in one of the rooms at Christie’s, with about 40 buyers in attendance. Most of the lots before mine were going for about £2,000. I was thinking, even if I make 500 quid, it would still be amazing. I only paid 50p for it.

So when it came to my book and the auctioneer said, “We’ll start the bidding at £3,000,” I was already thrilled. The bids started going up in jumps of £500: “£4,000, £4,500, £5,000.” My heart was racing. “£6,000, £6,500, £7,000…”

I started to feel a bit nauseous, but was trying to hold it together. The bidding had reached 10 grand before I knew it. It was very quiet in the room. My girlfriend had come to watch with a couple of her colleagues. As it got to £13,000, they were mouthing, “Oh my God!” to me. It finally went for £16,000.

I was 28 at the time; I didn’t have any serious life pressures, but I’d been in debt in the past. All I knew was that I couldn’t piss it up the wall. I’m not the sort of person who has a rich relative to leave them money to fall back on.

My girlfriend persuaded me to put on a photography exhibition – something I’d always wanted to do. Then I spent the rest on a deposit for a flat. I would never have been able to get the money together to buy my own place without it. We’re still living here now.

I carried on going back to Paws until it closed a couple of years ago. I made a small anonymous donation, but never told them what had gone on. I know it sounds strange, but I didn’t want to change the relationship. I just popped in the next lunchtime as if nothing had happened.

• As told to Clare Considine

George Allen & Unwin Ltd. of London published the first edition of The Hobbit on 21 September 1937 with a print run of 1,500 copies, which sold out by December because of enthusiastic reviews.This first printing was illustrated in black and white by Tolkien, who designed the dust jacket as well. Houghton Mifflin of Boston and New York reset type for an American edition, to be released early in 1938, in which four of the illustrations would be colour plates. Allen & Unwin decided to incorporate the colour illustrations into their second printing, released at the end of 1937. Despite the book's popularity, paper rationing due to World War II and not ending until 1949 meant that the Allen & Unwin edition of the book was often unavailable during this period. Subsequent editions in English were published in 1951, 1966, 1978 and 1995. Numerous English-language editions of The Hobbit have been produced by several publishers. In addition, The Hobbit has been translated into over sixty languages, with more than one published version for some languages. Revisions In December 1937 The Hobbit's publisher, Stanley Unwin, asked Tolkien for a sequel. In response Tolkien provided drafts for The Silmarillion, but the editors rejected them, believing that the public wanted "more about hobbits". Tolkien subsequently began work on The New Hobbit, which would eventually become The Lord of the Rings,[48] a course that would not only change the context of the original story, but lead to substantial changes to the character of Gollum. In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum willingly bets his magic ring on the outcome of the riddle-game, and he and Bilbo part amicably. In the second edition edits, to reflect the new concept of the One Ring and its corrupting abilities, Tolkien made Gollum more aggressive towards Bilbo and distraught at losing the ring. The encounter ends with Gollum's curse, "Thief! Thief, Thief, Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!" This presages Gollum's portrayal in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien sent this revised version of the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" to Unwin as an example of the kinds of changes needed to bring the book into conformity with The Lord of the Rings, but he heard nothing back for years. When he was sent galley proofs of a new edition, Tolkien was surprised to find the sample text had been incorporated. In The Lord of the Rings, the original version of the riddle game is explained as a "lie" made up by Bilbo under the harmful influence of the Ring, whereas the revised version contains the "true" account. The revised text became the second edition, published in 1951 in both the UK and the US. Tolkien began a new version in 1960, attempting to adjust the tone of The Hobbit to its sequel. He abandoned the new revision at chapter three after he received criticism that it "just wasn't The Hobbit", implying it had lost much of its light-hearted tone and quick pace. After an unauthorized paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings appeared from Ace Books in 1965, Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine asked Tolkien to refresh the text of The Hobbit to renew the US copyright. This text became the 1966 third edition. Tolkien took the opportunity to align the narrative even more closely to The Lord of the Rings and to cosmological developments from his still unpublished Quenta Silmarillion as it stood at that time. These small edits included, for example, changing the phrase "elves that are now called Gnomes" from the first, and second editions,[56] on page 63, to "High Elves of the West, my kin" in the third edition. Tolkien had used "gnome" in his earlier writing to refer to the second kindred of the High Elves—the Noldor (or "Deep Elves")—thinking "gnome", derived from the Greek gnosis (knowledge), was a good name for the wisest of the elves. However, because of its common denotation of a garden gnome, derived from the 16th-century Paracelsus, Tolkien abandoned the term. He also changed "tomatoes" to "pickles" but retained other anachronisms, such as clocks and tobacco. In The Lord of the Rings, he has Merry explain that tobacco had been brought from the West by the Númenóreans.

Hobbit first edition with JRR Tolkien's inscription doubles sales record

This article is more than 5 years old

Sold for £137,000, the book with inscription in Old English that talks of ‘marvels and strange beings’ was a gift to one of Tolkien’s students at Leeds

Alison Flood

Published onFri 5 Jun 2015 13.27 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/05/hobbit-first-edition-with-jrr-tolkiens-inscription-doubles-sales-record

A first edition of The Hobbit given by JRR Tolkien to one of his former students in 1937 has more than doubled the world record for a copy of the author’s first novel, selling at auction for £137,000.

The previous record, set in 2008, for a copy of The Hobbit was £50,000, and Sotheby’s in London had expected to sell this copy for between £50,000 and £70,000. But the copy given by Tolkien to Katherine Kilbride, taught by the author at Leeds University in the 1920s, exceeded all expectations.

Tolkien inscribed only a “handful” of presentation copies of The Hobbit on its publication, said Sotheby’s, with CS Lewis also a recipient. Kilbride’s includes an inscription by the author in Old English, identified by John D Rateliff, author of The History of The Hobbit, as an extract from Tolkien’s The Lost Road. This time-travel story, in which the world of Númenor and Middle-earth were linked with the legends of many other times and peoples, was abandoned by the author incomplete.

Tom Shippey’s study of Tolkien’s fiction, The Road to Middle-Earth, cites a similar poem and translates it as: “There is many a thing in the West-regions unknown to me, marvels and strange beings, a land fair and lovely, the homeland of the Elves, and the bliss of the Gods ... ”

Tolkien’s message in Old English to former student Katherine ‘Kitty’ Kilbride. The book sold for a record £137,000 at Sotheby’s in London Photograph: Sotheby's

But the inscription diverges in the third line. According to Professor Susan Irvine at UCL, Tolkien followed “eardgard elfa” or “the homeland of the elves” with “eorclanstanas / on dunscrafum digle scninath”, which she translated as “precious stones / shining secretly in mountain caves”.

Kilbride, who died in 1966, was “an invalid all her life”, according to her nephew, “and was much cheered by [Tolkien’s] chatty letters and cards ... books were given to her as they were published”.

In a letter thanking Tolkien, now kept in Oxford’s Bodleian library, Kilbride tells the author: “What fun you must have had drawing out the maps.”

Beefeaters at Tower of London face job cuts amid coronavirus crisis / VIDEO:On the Road with the Chief Beefeater at the Tower of London

July 20, 2020, 7:47 am

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The Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary, popularly known as the Beefeaters, are ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London. In principle they are responsible for looking after any prisoners in the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels. They have also conducted guided tours of the Tower since the Victorian era. All warders are retired from the Armed Forces of Commonwealth realms and must be former warrant officers with at least 22 years of service. They must also hold the Long Service and Good Conduct medal. Since 2011, there have been 37 Yeomen Warders and one Chief Warder. The Yeomen Warders are often incorrectly referred to as Yeomen of the Guard, which is actually a distinct corps of Royal Bodyguards. Although the Yeomen Warders are often referred to as Yeomen of the Guard, which is a distinct corps of Royal Bodyguards of the British monarch, they are in fact a separate entity within this guard. Gilbert and Sullivan's opera, The Yeomen of the Guard (1888), is set in the 16th century, an earlier era before the two corps were split apart; it concerns what are today the Yeomen Warders. Beefeater The name Beefeater is of uncertain origin, with various proposed derivations. The term was common as early as the 17th century as a slang term for the English in general.[4] The earliest connection to the Royal Household came as a reference to the Yeomen of the Guard by Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who frequented the Court in 1669. In referring to the Yeomen of the Guard, he stated, "A very large ration of beef is given to them daily at the court, and they might be called Beef-eaters". The Beefeater name was carried over to the Yeomen Warders, due to the two corps' outward similarities and the Yeoman Warders' more public presence. Beefeaters also commonly produced and consumed broths made of beef, which were described as rich and hearty. These broths were known, at the time, as bef or beffy. While this is the most-cited etymology, including by the Corps themselves, some etymologists have noted the term's similarity to hláf-æta, the Old English term for a menial servant, lit. "loaf-eater", the counterpart of hlaford "loaf-warden" and hlæfdige, which became "lord" and "lady" respectively.Claims that the name derives from buffetier (an Old French term meaning 'a waiter or servant' at a sideboard) are often mentioned, in Skeat's An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (published 1879–1882), for example, since one role of Beefeaters was to attend the king at meals; this etymology book, however, concludes that there is "not the faintest tittle of evidence" for this conjecture.Other reliable sources also indicate that buffetier is unlikely to have been the source of the word.

Beefeaters at Tower of London face job cuts amid coronavirus crisis

First time in more than five centuries that tower’s guards threatened with redundancies

Jasper Jolly

Mon 20 Jul 2020 11.21 BSTLast modified on Mon 20 Jul 2020 15.23 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/20/beefeaters-tower-of-london-job-cuts-coronavirus

Historic Royal Palaces (HRP), the charity that looks after the palaces, faces a shortfall of £98m this year, and it expects visitor numbers to take years to recover to 2019 levels.

It is thought to be the first time since Henry VII established the force in 1485 that the yeoman warders, the ceremonial guardians of the tower popularly known as Beefeaters, face the threat of compulsory redundancy. It is understood that two Beefeaters have so far opted to take voluntary redundancy, but further cuts are possible.

Heritage sites across the UK face threats to their future as the pandemic reduces visitor numbers.

New forecasts for the 2020 financial year suggest HRP will make revenues of only £12m, compared with the £110m forecast before the pandemic. There are about 800 visitors to the Tower of London a day, compared with as many as 15,000 on busy summer days in previous years. The Tower has capacity for about 1,000 visitors with social distancing.

The charity has already carried out a programme of voluntary redundancies, but it is likely to require further job losses to reduce its wage bill to below £30m for the financial year, compared with more than £50m in the previous 12 months. Staff have taken a 20% pay cut from July to October, with a recruitment freeze and unpaid leave also implemented to cut costs.

As well as the Tower of London, the affected employees work at Hampton Court, Kensington Palace, the Banqueting House and Kew Palace, as well as Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland.

The pressure at the Tower of London is particularly acute because of its role in protecting the crown jewels, which include the regalia used at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and likely to be used by her successors. The fixed security costs of protecting the crown jewels are covered by the charity, with no contributions by either the government or the royal family.

HRP has not received specific financial aid from the government during the pandemic. However, the charity has gained permission from the government for a £26m loan from its bank on commercial terms.

John Barnes, the HRP chief executive, said: ‘‘Historic Royal Palaces is a self-funded charity. We depend on visitors for 80% of our income. The closure of our six sites for almost four months has dealt a devastating blow to our finances, which we expect to continue for the rest of the financial year and to be compounded by the slow recovery of international tourism. We urgently need the public to support us by visiting our sites now they have reopened.

“We have taken every possible measure to secure our financial position, but we need to do more to survive in the long term. We simply have no choice but to reduce our payroll costs.”

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Buckingham Palace have been contacted for comment.

Brooks Brothers files for bankruptcy

July 20, 2020, 10:13 pm

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As a young Black man I grew up chasing Brooks Brothers' Ivy image — then I grew out of it

July 22, 2020, 4:24 am

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Robert Hill wearing Brooks Brothers in the 1967 Borough of Manhattan Community College Yearbook in New York City.

miles davis wearing brooks brothers

OPINION

As a young Black man I grew up chasing Brooks Brothers' Ivy image — then I grew out of it

Robert Hill Opinion contributor

Published 7:00 AM EDT Jul 21, 2020

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/07/21/brooks-brothers-bankruptcy-race-mens-clothing-ivy-style-column/5470898002/

Brooks Brothers is departing this life. The imposing 10-story limestone and brick edifice at 346 Madison Ave. in Manhattan was not the original home of the store. Yet, for 105 years, the northwest corner of 44th St. and Madison Ave has been headquarters to the haberdasher that defined, since 1818, the American classic style in menswear for the upper class, the professional class and — in the last third of the 20th century — their upstart urban cool wannabes.

Brooks Brothers largely created the Ivy League look, but it was popular on more than just college campuses. In the days of mid-century New York, city street kids like me threw away their blue suede shoes in favor of penny loafers and wing tips and kidnapped the Ivy Jivey image — as the Harlemites nick-named it — making it their own.

By the time of my sophomore year in high school, I was one of those African American kids who affected the Ivy Jivey persona. But, that wasn't enough — I wanted to sell it. Upon graduation, I could join Brooks’ executive training program and by the time I was 21 become the first Black buyer of something — anything — at Brooks.

It did not end up happening that way, but I did make it through the employment door at Brooks. Things did not end well for me at pre-Black Lives Matter Brooks Brothers. Now, the clothier is bankrupt, but I’m not.

Moving on up to the top floor

My jobs at K&M Delicatessen on East 96 St. and the Swift Messenger Service at 10 West 46 St. enabled me to present myself daily in both casual and dressy Ivy Jivey tradition as a senior at the predominately-African American High School of Commerce (today the site of the Juilliard School of Music) in 1965.

And the Distributive Education Club of America — a fancy name for the retailing club — enabled me to present myself to personnel directors from top Manhattan retailers. Seniors in the club had varying interests in college. But we all wanted to be big shots at major department and specialty stores.

Who decided our racial identity? What a shopping mall taught me and my friends about Latinos, race and segregation

Club members (all of us African Americans) invited store executives to a reception we hosted at the school in honor of ourselves. They came, Caucasians all. Only Brooks Brothers interested me, and I was the recent second place winner of the high school New York sales competition. Before the party ended, I had an offer from Brooks. Of course, I accepted. The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) of the City University of New York had other ideas, however.

BMCC, the only public junior college in Manhattan, had recently opened; it offered an expense-free full time/day program for economically and educationally disadvantaged New York youngsters, to which I was admitted. The catch: Students could not work during their first school quarter.

Family handout

BMCC advocated for Brooks to hold my job for me. It did. In the fall of 1965 I started in the vast 10th floor men’s furnishings stock room, working with a group of about six other full time and part time racially diverse male clerks, including a grouchy supervisor and three teen college students. My job consisted of shooting cashmere sweaters — or whatever was required — through pneumatic tubes to fill orders.

The beginning of our end

It was magical. Here was the high temple of the iconic gray flannel three-button suit, button down collar shirt, Chesterfield top coat, the “bull and bear” or diagonally striped BB No. 1 Rep tie and, underneath it all, buttoned boxer shorts that tied in the back. Though a lowly entry-level peon, I was on top of it all, literally, in that stock room on the top floor.

But for us employees, there was an added benefit: the semi-annual "Taken Out of Stock" sale for Brooks staff only.

After the inventory counts were complete, merchandise not destined to be sold to the public was taken to the roof where we workers were turned loose to buy. We could snag an all-wool three-piece suit worth hundreds of dollars at the price of just $5.00.

How to not let your anti-racist passion: Advice from your one Black friend

Within a year, I was moved up by moving down to the suits stock room on floor five, home of the fabled Brooks Brothers suits. We stacked the jackets on beautiful hardwood tables inside out, revealing the exquisite workmanship. I was in the store the day Prince Phillip visited in 1966, but I did not see him pronounce our stacks untidy.

In 1967 I graduated with an associate degree in applied science in business and won a scholarship to the Stern School of Business at New York University. A white college student, a work friend of mine from the 10th floor stock room, was awarded a similar credential. We both got promoted to junior executives in buying offices with pay raises, and we were still permitted to go to school full time to complete our bachelor’s degrees.

We were ecstatic. Then I learned he earned $85 a week.

“How much?" I asked. “I only got $80.”

That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with Brooks Brothers. The personnel director I had hosted at that school reception two years earlier explained the other assistant was at Brooks before me. But he only arrived a few weeks before me. Furthermore, I pointed out that prior to the raises, we made the same hourly rate. Brooks did not budge. At the time, I knew nothing of the newly enacted laws against workplace discrimination based on race.

Around that time, my counselor back at BMCC informed me that United Airlines was recruiting at the college. Thus, I can fairly claim first Brooks Brothers, then the world. Immediately, I quit the clothier for the friendly skies. On a vacation from United, I worked my way around the world in 30 days, and I never worked in an Ivy Jivey store — or any other store — again.

Robert Hill is a Pittsburgh-based communications consultant.

Panama hats from Ecuador.

July 23, 2020, 12:32 am

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A Panama hat, also known as an Ecuadorian hat or a toquilla straw hat, is a traditional brimmed straw hat of Ecuadorian origin. Traditionally, hats were made from the plaited leaves of the Carludovica palmata plant, known locally as the toquilla palm or jipijapa palm, although it is a palm-like plant rather than a true palm.

Ecuadorian hats are light-colored, lightweight, and breathable, and often worn as accessories to summer-weight suits, such as those made of linen or silk. The tightness, the finesse of the weave, and the time spent in weaving a complete hat out of the toquilla straw characterize its quality. Beginning around the turn of the 20th century, these hats became popular as tropical and seaside accessories owing to their ease of wear and breathability.

The art of weaving the traditional Ecuadorian toquilla hat was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists on 5 December 2012.

Beginning in the early to mid-1600s, hat weaving evolved as a cottage industry along the Ecuadorian coast as well as in small towns throughout the Andean mountain range. Hat weaving and wearing grew steadily in Ecuador through the 17th and 18th centuries.

In 1835, Manuel Alfaro arrived in Montecristi to make his name and fortune in Panama hats. He set up a Panama hat business with his main objective being exportation. Cargo ships from Guayaquil and Manta were filled with his merchandise and headed to the Gulf of Panama. His business prospered as more and more Gold Rush prospectors arrived and passed through Panama needing a hat for the sun.

One of the first towns to start weaving the hats in the Andes is Principal, part of the Chordeleg Canton in the Azuay province. Straw hats woven in Ecuador, like many other 19th and early 20th century South American goods, were shipped first to the Isthmus of Panama before sailing for their destinations in Asia, the rest of the Americas and Europe, subsequently acquiring a name that reflected their point of international sale—"panama hats"—rather than their place of domestic origin.

The term was being used by at least 1834. The popularity of the hats increased in the mid-19th century when many miners of the California Gold Rush traveled to California via the Isthmus of Panama and Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1906 , U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the construction site of the Panama Canal and was photographed wearing a Panama hat, which further increased the hats' popularity. Although the Panama hat continues to provide a livelihood for thousands of Ecuadorians, fewer than a dozen weavers capable of making the finest "Montecristi superfinos" remain. Production in Ecuador is dwindling, due to economic problems in Ecuador and competition from Chinese hat producers.

Tamsui hat

The tamsui hat was a straw hat made in Formosa (now Taiwan) to directly compete with the Panama in the early 20th century. Tamsui hats were made from Pandanus odoratissimus fibre, which grew plentifully on the island. As they retained their whiteness, were washable, and could be folded and carried about without damage, Tamsui hats replaced the rather costlier Panama in East Asia in the early 20th century.

The two main processes in the creation of a Panama hat are weaving and blocking. The two most common types of weaves are the Cuenca and Brisa. The Cuenca weave has the appearance of a herringbone pattern and utilizes slightly more straw than the Brisa weave. The Brisa weave has the appearance of small diamonds/squares. This type of weave is less intricate but perceived as finer than the Cuenca weave by some as it is lighter. Other types of weaves include the Crochet, Fancy,[8] Torcido, and New Order.

The quality of a Panama hat is defined by the tightness of the weave. The fine weave of the hat was ideal for protection against the tropical sun. Historically, to measure the tightness of the weave, a simple square tool that looks like a frame for a one-inch picture was used. The aperture of this frame was 25 mm, or about 1 inch. The regulator would set this frame one inch from the edge of the hat's brim edge, and then count the peaks of the cross weaves, called carerra, moving in a parallel direction. The tighter the weave, the more carerras were counted. That number would be multiplied by two and reconciled against a grading chart. A highly refined grade 20 would consist of 16 carerras.

A Montecristi Panama hat rolled up in a box

The price of these hats depends on the time and quality that a weaver put in to the hat. A master weaver could take as long as eight months to weave a single hat. Weavers could sell a single hat to buyers for $200. Once the hat is sold to a buyer it then would pass through more people who would "finish the brim, shape it, remove imperfections, bleach the straw, and add interior and exterior brands." [10] After this one hat has been through at least six people it can then be sold outside of Ecuador for $450 to $10,000. The best hats can sell for up to fifty times more than what one weaver is paid for eight months of labor.

The best quality hats are known as Montecristis, after the town of Montecristi, where they are produced. The rarest and most expensive Panama hats are hand-woven with up to 3000 weaves per square inch. In February 2014, Simon Espinal, an Ecuadorian 47-year-old Panama hat weaver considered to be among the best at his craft, set a world record by creating a Panama hat with four thousand weaves per inch that took eight months to handcraft from beginning to end.

According to popular lore, a "superfino" Panama hat can hold water, and, when rolled up, pass through a wedding ring.

Despite their name, Panama hats have never been made in Panama. They originated in Ecuador where they are made to this day. Historically, throughout Central and South America, people referred to Panama hats as “Jipijapa,” “Toquilla,” or “Montecristi” hats (the latter two phrases are still in use today). Their designation as Panama hats originated in the 1850s, when Ecuadorian hat makers emigrated to Panama, where they were able to achieve much greater trade volumes.[14]

Panama hats first appeared internationally at the 1855 World's Fair.

Ecuador's low tourism and international trade levels during the 1850s prompted hat makers to take their crafts to the busy trade center of Panama. There, the hat makers were able to sell more hats than they ever could in Ecuador. The hats were sold to gold prospectors traveling through Panama to California during the historic Californian Gold Rush. Travelers would tell people admiring their hats that they bought them in Panama. So, the hats quickly became known as “Panama hats.”

Soon after at the 1855 World's Fair in Paris, Panama hats were featured for the first time on a global scale. However, the Fair’s catalog did not mention Ecuador as its country of origin. It listed this type of hat as a “cloth hat” even though it was clearly not made out of cloth.

The name "Panama hat" was further reinforced by President Theodore Roosevelt's trip to oversee the construction of the Panama Canal. Roosevelt used his natural ability to drum up publicity by posing for a series of photos at the Panama Canal construction site in 1906. Photographic technology was relatively new at the time, and President Roosevelt was not shy about using the press to his advantage. Photos of his visit showed a strong, rugged leader dressed crisply in light-colored suits sporting Ecuadorian-made straw Panama hats.

Au coeur de l'Elysée

July 24, 2020, 8:06 pm

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Découvrez le Palais de l’Elysée à Paris / TV Baron Noir season 3: criticism of a France on the brink of chaos

July 24, 2020, 8:06 pm

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 The Élysée Palace (French: Palais de l'Élysée is the official residence of the President of the French Republic. Completed in 1722, it was initially built for Louis Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne. It was used as the office of the French President for the first time in 1848. The current building contains the presidential office and residency, as well as the meeting place of the Council of Ministers. It is located near the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, the name Élysée deriving from Elysian Fields, the place of the blessed dead in Greek mythology. Important foreign visitors are hosted at the nearby Hôtel de Marigny, a palatial residence.

Hôtel d'Évreux

The Count of Évreux, by Hyacinthe Rigaud, circa 1720

The Hôtel d'Évreux and its gardens circa 1737

The architect Armand-Claude Molet possessed a property fronting on the road to the village of Roule, west of Paris (now the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré), and backing onto royal property, the Grand Cours through the Champs-Élysées. He sold this in 1718 to Louis Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Count of Évreux (families: Dukes and Princes of Bouillon and Sedan: La Marck | von der Marck), with the agreement that Mollet would construct an hôtel particulier for the count, fronted by an entrance court and backed by a garden. The Hôtel d'Évreux was finished and decorated by 1722, and though it has undergone many modifications since, it remains a fine example of the French classical style. At the time of his death in 1753, Évreux was the owner of one of the most widely admired houses in Paris, and it was bought by King Louis XV as a residence for the Marquise de Pompadour, his mistress. Opponents showed their distaste for the regime by hanging signs on the gates that read: "Home of the King's whore". After her death, it reverted to the crown.

In 1773, it was purchased by Nicolas Beaujon, banker to the Court and one of the richest men in France, who needed a suitably sumptuous "country house" (for the city of Paris did not yet extend this far) to house his fabulous collection of great masters paintings. To this end, he hired the architect Étienne-Louis Boullée to make substantial alterations to the buildings (as well as design an English-style garden). Soon on display there were such well-known masterpieces as Holbein's The Ambassadors (now in the National Gallery in London), and Frans Hals' Bohemian (now at the Louvre). His architectural alterations and art galleries gave this residence international renown as "one of the premier houses of Paris".

Royal and Imperial Palace

The palace and gardens were purchased from Beaujon by Bathilde d'Orléans, Duchess of Bourbon in 1787 for 1,300,000 livres. It was the Duchess who named it the Élysée. She also built a group of cottages in the gardens which she named the Hameau de Chantilly, after the Hameau at her father-in-law's Château de Chantilly. With the French Revolution, the Duchess fled the country and the Élysée was confiscated. It was leased out. The gardens were used for eating, drinking, and dancing, under the name Hameau de Chantilly; and the rooms became gambling houses.

In 1803, the Élysée was sold to Joachim Murat, and in 1808, to the Emperor, and it became known as the Élysée-Napoléon. After the Battle of Waterloo, Napoléon returned to the Élysée, signed his abdication there on 22 June 1815, and left the Élysée on the 25th.

Russian Cossacks camped at the Élysée when they occupied Paris in 1814. The property was then returned to its previous owner, the Duchesse de Bourbon, who then sold it to her royal cousin, Louis XVIII, in 1816.

Presidential residence

Under the provisional government of the Second Republic, it was called Élysée National and was designated the official residence of the President of the Republic. (The President also has the use of several other official residences, including the Château de Rambouillet, forty-five kilometres southwest of Paris, and the Fort de Brégançon near Marseille.)

In 1853, following his coup d'état that ended the Second Republic, Napoléon III charged the architect Joseph-Eugène Lacroix with renovations; meanwhile he moved to the nearby Tuileries Palace, but kept the Élysée as a discreet place to meet his mistresses, moving between the two palaces through a secret underground passage that has since been demolished.[citation needed] Since Lacroix completed his work in 1867, the essential look of the Palais de l'Élysée has remained the same.

In 1873, during the Third Republic, The Élysée became the official presidential residence.

In 1899, Félix Faure became the only French President to die in the palace.

In 1917, a chimpanzee escaped from a nearby ménagerie, entered the palace and was said to have tried to haul the wife of President Raymond Poincaré into a tree only to be foiled by Élysée guards.President Paul Deschanel, who resigned in 1920 because of mental illness, was said to have been so impressed by the chimpanzee's feat that, to the alarm of his guests, he took to jumping into trees during state receptions.

The Élysée Palace was closed in June 1940, and remained empty during World War II. It was reoccupied only in 1946 by Vincent Auriol, President of the provisional government, then first President of the Fourth Republic from 1947 to 1954.

From 1959 to 1969, the Élysée was occupied by Charles de Gaulle, the first President of the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle did not like its lack of privacy, and oversaw the purchase of the luxurious Hôtel de Marigny to lodge foreign state officials in visits to France, saying, "I do not like the idea of meeting kings walking around my corridors in their pyjamas."

In the 1970s, President Georges Pompidou had some of the original rooms in the palace redesigned by Pierre Paulin in the modern style, of which only the Salle à Manger Paulin survives.

Socialist President François Mitterrand, who governed from 1981 to 1995, is said to have seldom used its private apartments, preferring the privacy of his own home on the more bohemian Left Bank. A discreet flat in the nearby presidential annexe Palais de l'Alma housed his mistress Anne Pingeot, mother of his illegitimate daughter Mazarine Pingeot.

By contrast, his successor Jacques Chirac lived throughout his two terms in office (1995–2007) in the Élysée apartments with his wife Bernadette.

Chirac increased the Palace's budget by 105% to 90 million euros per year, according to the book L'argent caché de l'Élysée. One million euros per year is spent on drinks alone for the guests invited to the Élysée Palace, 6.9 million euros per year on bonuses for presidential staff and 6.1 million euros per year on the 145 extra employees Chirac hired after he was elected in 1995.

The Élysée has gardens, in which presidents hosted parties on the afternoon of Bastille Day until 2010. That year, then-President Nicolas Sarkozy decided to stop organizing this event because of France's high debt and the economic crisis.

The heavily guarded mansion and grounds are situated at 55 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré at its intersection with Avenue de Marigny [fr]. A monumental gate with four iconic[clarification needed] columns, flanked by walls topped by a balustrade, opens onto a large rounded courtyard. The majestic ceremonial courtyard imparts a degree of grandeur to the house. The main residence is constructed in the French classical style. An entrance vestibule is aligned with the ceremonial courtyard and gardens. There is a long central building, a great — or State — apartment divided in the middle by a large salon that opens into the garden. This building also has a central three-storey section, and two single-floor wings: the Appartement des Bains to the right, and the Petit Appartement (private apartments) to the left. The French-style garden has a central path aligned with the central building, patterned flowerbeds and alleys of chestnut trees edged with hedgerows.

Ground floor

Diagram of the ground floor: 1/ Terrasse 2/ Salon d'argent 3/ Salle à Manger 4/ Bibliothèque 5/ Salon bleu 6/ Salon des Cartes 7/ Salle des fêtes 8/ Salon Murat 9/ Salon des Aides de camps 10/ Salon des ambassadeurs 11/ Salon Pompadour 12/ Salon des portraits 13/ Salon Cléopâtre 14/ Escalier Murat 15/ Vestibule d'honneur 16/ Salon des tapisseries 17/ Jardin d'hiver 18/ Salon Napoléon III 19/ Cour d'honneur.

The Vestibule d'Honneur (Hall of Honour) is the room which the main entrance to the palace leads into. In this room the President of France meets visiting officials, world leaders and spiritual leaders.

The Salon d'Argent (Silver Room), in the east wing of the palace, was decorated by Caroline Murat, wife of Joachim Murat and sister of Napoleon I. The room is so called because of the silver coloured edges to the wall features, mantelpieces, tables, sofas and armchairs, of which the last have swan sculptures at the sides. Three notable historical events happened in this room. On 22 June 1815, Napoleon formally signed his abdication warrant after losing the Battle of Waterloo that year; on 2 December 1851 Louis Napoleon launched his coup d'état; and in 1899, President Félix Faure met his mistress, Marguerite Steinheil.

The Salle à Manger Paulin (Paulin Dining Room), named after its architect, Pierre Paulin, is a complete contrast to most of the other rooms in the palace. It was designed as a private dining room for President Georges Pompidou and his wife Claude, and the interior and furniture date from the 1970s. The walls are made of 22 polyester panels, the chairs have a single leg attached to a round base, and the round table is made of glass. The room is lit by roof panels decorated with glass balls and rods.

The Salon des Portraits (Portrait Room) was used by the Emperor Napoleon III for portrait medallions of the most important sovereigns of the time, replacing earlier portraits of the Bonaparte family installed by Joachim Murat. The portraits are of: Pope Pius IX, Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria-Hungary, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, King Frederick William IV of Prussia, Queen Isabel II of Spain and King William I of Württemberg. Previously a dining room, President Nicolas Sarkozy used the room as his second office.

The Salle des Fêtes (Hall of Festivities) dominates the west wing of the palace. It was designed by Eugène Debressenne [fr] and opened on 10 May 1889 by the then President, Sadi Carnot, to coincide with the Exposition Universelle that year. The room has paintings on the ceiling called "La République sauvegarde la Paix" (The Republic Safeguards Peace), painted by Guillaume Dubufe in 1894. There are also six Gobelins tapestries in the room, which is predominantly laid out in red and gold decor. In 1984 President François Mitterrand added ten windows to the room to let in more light. It is in this room that all French Presidents are inaugurated, and where they host official conferences and banquets.

The Jardins d'Hiver (Winter Gardens) was built in 1883 as a greenhouse for growing plants. Today it is no longer used for this purpose, being instead an extension of the Salon des Fêtes, and used for official banquets. There is a Gobelins tapestry on the wall, and three chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

 The Salon des Ambassadeurs

The Salon Murat (Murat Room) is used every Wednesday by the President for meetings with the Prime Minister and Cabinet of France, along with the Presidential Secretary (known as the "Secretary-General of the Élysée"). It was also in this room that Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of Germany, signed the Treaty of the Élysée in 1963.

The Salon Cléopâtre (Cleopatra Room) gets its name from a Gobelins tapestry on the wall, installed during the presidency of Sadi Carnot, which depicts Antony and Cleopatra meeting at Tarsus. Also in the room is a portrait of Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma, painted by Alexandre Roslin.[6]

The Salon des Ambassadeurs (Ambassadors' Room) is where the French President officially receives ambassadors from abroad.

The Salon Bleu (Blue Room) is used as the office of the First Lady of France.

The Escalier Murat (Murat Staircase) is the main staircase in the palace, linking the ground and first floors.

LE BARON NOIR

 Baron Noir season 3: criticism of a France on the brink of chaos

Alexander Janowiak March 2, 2020 - UPDATE: 06/05/2020 23:43

Political Drama

https://www.ecranlarge.com/saisons/critique/1163541-baron-noir-saison-3-critique-dune-france-au-bord-du-chaos

Season 3 of Baron Noir allows Canal - to confirm its status as the best creator of original French series, far ahead of Netflix. The political series showrunned by Eric Benzekri and carried by a determined Kad Merad is not always at its best in these eight new episodes, but plays very skilfully the real and the fictional to deliver a captivating story about the French political and societal world.

POWER GAMES

With these first two episodes, this season 3 of Baron Noir has set the bar high. Its ultra-promising beginning and its multiple stakes with its political chessboard in full reshaping (especially with the departure of some main characters like that of Cyril Balsan embodied by the excellent Hugo Becker) heralded a rather mind-blowing fight between the characters and innovative ideas about French politics.

However, very quickly, the series is forgotten a little and sadly leaves to tick a few mandatory boxes to fully anchor itself in the French reality, even global. One thinks of course the accusations of sexual harassment of which the German Chancellor is accused of resigning and drowning Françallemagne's ambitious plans alongside Dorendeu.

This choice is not fundamentally a bad thing, as the subject has become major in the public debate. On the other hand, its importance is so minor at the heart of the story that its approach lacks finesse, accuracy and above all sincerity and resembles above all a gadget allowing the narrative to advance and kill the (false) great ambitions installed, more than a real plea or simple denunciation.

This kind of narrative misdirections will happen a few times during season 3 (not for the same reasons) and will then sometimes prevent the good performance of the story or in any case, take away some form of spontaneity and naturalness.

That said, this reversal of situation that happens very quickly (from the 3rd episode therefore) will obviously move the lines for the President of the French Republic embodied by the magnetic Anna Mouglalis. Amélie Dorendeu wants to do everything to avoid replaying her place in universal suffrage. The series therefore has fun with the French institutions and tries to reshape the political and constitutional landscape of France. The ideas are innovative, quite amazing and making his political proposals electoral strategies makes every thought, vision and design exciting.

It must be said that the series enjoys an audience of screenwriters even more rooted in French political history. In addition to Eric Benzekri (former collaborator of Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Julien Dray), we find Thomas Finkielkraut (son of Alain) or Raphael Chevènement (son of Jean-Pierre). No wonder, then, that the series manages to be so precise and plausible about what it portrays of institutions and politics.

INTIMATE CONVICTION OR AMBITION?

However, Baron Noir knows that politics is not just a matter of ideas or convictions. To the public, voters, politics and de facto figure of politics are a matter of magnetism, charisma, charm or at least image in the broadest sense. In the age of social media, everything is known and everything is important, and Eric Benzekri's series meticulously describes it in season 3.

At the same time that the Parisian municipal women experienced an unprecedented turnaround with the abandonment of Benjamin Griveaux (LREM candidate) at the Paris mayoralty following the dissemination of private sexual images, Baron Noir gained credit for his ability to play the fate of his characters on their image with French citizens. More than a war of ideas, politics has undeniably turned into a war of image and pageantry, and as the series says: "The presidential election has become a television series".

The much-anticipated (and much recommended) appearance by President Dorendeu in the fictional show Ambition Intime presented by Karine Le Marchand is a striking example, demonstrating how politics is taking a major turn. A turning point where it is ultimately no longer the proposals that convince only, but also the pace and form. De facto, all moves are allowed.

In this right line, Baron Noir takes the lead on the emergence of a new form of politics with the exciting character of Christophe Mercier (incredible Frédéric Saurel): an anti-system SVT professor candidate for the election to the draw, a kind of mix between the Yellow Jacket Jérôme Rodriguez, the Italian populist Beppe Grillo and the American President Donald Trump.

His arrival at the forefront offers both a totally new vision of the French political landscape and is part of a fiction not so far removed from reality. If Coluche frightened the Mitterrand - Chirac - Giscard generation in the 1980s with the announcement of his candidacy, the current politicians are equally concerned about a so-called clown candidacy imbued with anti-system pujadism and able to bring back an electorate usually absentee in the polls (one obviously thinks of Remi Gaillard in Montpellier or the rumors of candidacy of the flagship tv host Cyril Hanouna in the presidential election).

It is a way to launch major topics on the current functioning of the political system while providing a captivating account of the inner workings of elections, government formations and presidential debates. Politicians (or rather politicians) play excessively with their functions, statutes and powers to ensure their privileges rather than those of their fellow citizens. The backlash could well hit them sooner or later, harder and faster than they think, and plunge France into chaos.

IN ORDER OF BATTLE

By pushing the cursor this far, Eric Benzekri's series fits into a completely new register that gives it a real breadth. While it presented itself primarily as a drama in season 1 and then a political thriller in its season 2, the series becomes almost a dystopia in this season 3. In Baron  Noir, disparaître le politics  politique  is  simply    disappearing  and  degagism  is on the way. Everything  could  shift  to   another   power   that  is angry  and  determined:   that  of the  people,  buried  and  contained  for  the time being, but for how much longer? temps 

Largely driven  by the current  movements    and  they  very real, the Yellow Jackets  Jaunes  therefore,  the story  of  this  season  3  perfectly examines  the  major political issues    that  stand  dressent  before  France  today  and  tomorrow. In addition  to being  a  precise  reflection  on  the idea of  sur             retrouver   politics, but  also  of  politique  politique  politics  itself  and the  exemplarity  demanded  and  flouted of the  function,these ten episodes  take  an  intelligent  look at an outdated left that fails to find a new lease of life, the  rise  of  extremes  or  the   almostirretrievable divide  between  the elites and the mass, and the tipping point  that is likely to take place  soon  (aslap as a  catalyst?). catalyseur

Baron Noir thus succeeds very well after a slightly disappointing season 2. tête   d'un Ultra-ambitious,ambitieuse  pre-screensy  and  captivating,  this  season  3  offers a lot  of  tense  moments  during  its  eight  episodes,  despite  an extremely  repulsive  staging   (circular  traveling,   it  turns  tourner  your head after a while). Moreover, même  beyonddelà this  lack  of  visual audacity,   while  the  production  had  eu  the chance to tour  within  the Élysée,we  can  also  blame a lot  of  narrative  and  rhythmic choices. .

After all,  this  season  3 takes  time  to  launch  the  real subject of  its  plot  (almostpresque  five  episodes). More than  a  series  about  Rickwaert,  always  impeccably  interpreted  by  Kad  Merad    (evenmême  if  seeing him  bellow  and come out  of  the metaphors with a toit  head-to-head  champ  wears  a  little  in the long run)  or  a   series  on  politics  politique  and  its  workings,Baron  Noir has become  a  portrait  of  French society  in  this  season  3. Much attention to Rickwaert's fate and political resurrection takes the depth out of the series.

Finally, this season 3 suffers from time ellipses far too important. In eight episodes, nearly two years elapse, including a full one in the last two episodes. The rush of writing often spoils the power of certain situations, especially given the number of twists and different paths that each character can take in just a few minutes.

Thus, several passages and key moments of the plot do not have time to live on screen and to make the spectators feel any emotion. A careless choice of writing that the series sometimes tries to conceal by playing the card of the novel especially in its grand finale. Unfortunately, the intention remains very fabricated and the conclusion of this season 3 is above all a cliffhanger/twist terribly easy and opportunistic to permanently eject one of his characters. It remains to be seen, however, what he will provoke deep within Rickwaert in the potential season 4.

The three seasons of Baron Noir are available in full on Canal -Series.

Baron Noir saison 3 : critique d'une France au bord du chaos

Alexandre Janowiak | 2 mars 2020 - MAJ : 06/05/2020 23:43

Drame Politique

https://www.ecranlarge.com/saisons/critique/1163541-baron-noir-saison-3-critique-dune-france-au-bord-du-chaos

La saison 3 de Baron Noir permet à Canal + de confirmer son statut de meilleur créateur de séries originales françaises, très loin devant Netflix. La série politique showrunnée par Eric Benzekri et portée par un Kad Merad déterminé n'est pas toujours à son top dans ces huit nouveaux épisodes, mais joue très habilement du réel et du fictionnel pour livrer une histoire captivante sur le monde politique et sociétal français.

JEUX DE POUVOIR

Avec ces deux premiers épisodes, cette saison 3 de Baron Noir a mis la barre haut. Son début ultra prometteur et ses enjeux multiples avec son échiquier politique en plein remodelage (d'autant plus avec le départ de certains personnages principaux comme celui de Cyril Balsan incarné par l'excellent Hugo Becker) annonçaient un combat assez hallucinant entre les personnages et des idées novatrices sur la politique française.

Pourtant, très rapidement, la série s'oublie un peu et part tristement cocher quelques cases obligatoires pour s'ancrer pleinement dans la réalité française, voire mondiale. On pense évidemment aux accusations de harcèlements sexuels dont est accusé le chancelier allemand, obligé de démissionner et noyant les projets ambitieux de Françallemagne aux côtés de Dorendeu.

Ce choix n'est pas foncièrement une mauvaise chose, tant le sujet est devenu majeur au sein du débat public. En revanche, son importance est tellement mineure au coeur du récit que son approche manque de finesse, de justesse et surtout de sincérité et ressemble avant tout à un gadget permettant au récit d'avancer et de tuer les (fausses) grandes ambitions installées, plus qu'à un véritable plaidoyer ou simple dénonciation.

Ce genre d'égarements narratifs arrivera à quelques reprises durant cette saison 3 (pas pour les mêmes raisons) et empêchera alors parfois la bonne tenue de l'histoire ou en tout cas, lui retirera une certaine forme de spontanéité et de naturel.

Cela dit, ce retournement de situation qui arrive très vite (dès le 3e épisode donc) va évidemment bouger les lignes pour la présidente de la République française incarnée par la magnétique Anna Mouglalis. Amélie Dorendeu veut tout faire pour éviter de rejouer sa place au suffrage universel. La série s'amuse donc avec les institutions françaises et essaye de remodeler le paysage politique et constitutionnel de la France. Les idées sont novatrices, assez étonnantes et faire de ses propositions politiques des stratégies électorales rend chaque pensée, vision et conception passionnantes.

Il faut dire que la série jouit d'un parterre de scénaristes encore plus ancré dans l'histoire politique française. Outre Eric Benzekri donc (ancien collaborateur de Jean- Luc Mélenchon ou Julien Dray), on y retrouve Thomas Finkielkraut (fils d'Alain) ou encore Raphael Chevènement (fils de Jean-Pierre). Pas étonnant donc que la série réussisse à être aussi précise et vraisemblable sur ce qu'elle dépeint des institutions et la politique.

INTIME CONVICTION OU AMBITION ?

Pour autant, Baron Noir sait que la politique n'est pas uniquement une affaire d'idées ou de convictions. Auprès du public, des électeurs, la politique et de facto la figure du politique sont une affaire de magnétisme, de charisme, de charme ou en tout cas d'image au sens le plus large. À l'heure des réseaux sociaux, tout se sait et tout a une importance, et la série d'Eric Benzekri le décrit méticuleusement dans cette saison 3.

Au moment même où les municipales Parisiennes ont connu un retournement sans précédent avec l'abandon à la mairie de Paris de Benjamin Griveaux (candidat LREM) suite à la diffusion d'images sexuelles privées, Baron Noir gagne en crédit grâce à sa capacité à jouer le destin de ses personnages sur leur image auprès des citoyens français. Plus qu'une guerre d'idées, la politique s'est indéniablement transformée en une guerre d'image et d'apparat, et comme la série le dit : "La présidentielle est devenue une série télévisée".

Le passage très attendu (et tant recommandé par ses conseillers) de la présidente Dorendeu dans l'émission fictive Ambition Intime présentée par Karine Le Marchand en est un exemple frappant, démontrant à quel point la politique prend un tournant majeur. Un tournant où ce n'est finalement plus les propositions qui convainquent uniquement, mais aussi l'allure et la forme. De facto, tous les coups sont permis.

Dans cette droite lignée voire plus encore, Baron Noir prend les devants sur l'émergence d'une nouvelle forme de politique avec le personnage passionnant de Christophe Mercier (incroyable Frédéric Saurel) : un prof de SVT candidat anti-système pour l'élection au tirage au sort, sorte de mélange entre le Gilet Jaune Jérôme Rodriguez, le populiste italien Beppe Grillo et le président américain Donald Trump.

Son arrivée sur le devant de la scène offre à la fois une vision totalement inédite du paysage politique français et s'inscrit dans une fiction pas si éloignée de la réalité. Si Coluche a effrayé la génération Mitterrand - Chirac - Giscard dans les années 80 avec l'annonce de sa candidature, les politiques actuels s'inquiètent tout autant d'une candidature dite clown empreinte de poujadisme anti-système et capable de rameuter un électorat habituellement absentéiste dans les urnes (on pense évidemment à Remi Gaillard à Montpellier ou les rumeurs de candidature de l'animateur phare de la télévision Cyril Hanouna à la présidentielle 2022).

C'est le moyen de lancer des sujets majeurs sur le fonctionnement actuel du système politique tout en offrant un récit captivant sur les rouages des élections, des formations gouvernementales et des débats présidentiels. Les politiques (ou plutôt politiciens) jouent démesurément avec leurs fonctions, leurs statuts et leurs pouvoirs pour assurer leurs privilèges plutôt que ceux de leurs concitoyens. Le retour de bâton pourrait bien les frapper un jour ou l'autre, plus durement et rapidement qu'ils ne le pensent, et plonger la France dans le chaos.

EN ORDRE DE BATAILLE

En poussant le curseur aussi loin, la série de Eric Benzekri rentre dans un registre totalement nouveau qui lui donne une véritable ampleur. Alors qu'elle se présentait avant tout comme un drame dans sa saison 1 puis un thriller politique dans sa saison 2, la série devient quasiment une dystopie dans cette saison 3. Dans Baron Noir, la politique est tout simplement en passe de disparaître et le dégagisme est en marche. Tout pourrait basculer vers un autre pouvoir en rogne et déterminé : celui du peuple, enfoui et contenu pour le moment, mais pour encore combien de temps ?

Largement poussée par les mouvements actuels et eux bien réels, les Gilets Jaunes donc, l'histoire de cette saison 3 ausculte à merveille les enjeux politiques majeurs qui se dressent devant la France d'aujourd'hui et de demain. En plus d'être une réfléxion précise sur l'idée de la politique, mais aussi du politique en lui-même et de l'exemplarité exigée et bafouée de la fonction, ces dix épisodes portent un regard intelligent sur une gauche dépassée qui n'arrive pas à retrouver un nouveau souffle, de la montée des extrêmes ou encore de la fracture quasi-irrémédiable entre les élites et la masse, et la bascule qui risque de s'opérer prochainement (une baffe comme catalyseur ?).

Baron Noir réussit donc très largement son retour après une saison 2 légèrement décevante. Ultra-ambitieuse, précurseuse et captivante, cette saison 3 offre de sacrés moments de tensions durant ses huit épisodes, malgré une mise en scène extrêmement rébarbative (les travelings circulaires, ça fait tourner la tête au bout d'un moment). D'ailleurs, au-delà de ce manque d'audace visuelle, alors que la production a eu la chance de tourner au sein même de l'Élysée, on pourra également reprocher énormément de choix narratifs et rythmiques.

Après tout, cette saison 3 met du temps à lancer le véritable sujet de son intrigue (presque cinq épisodes). Plus qu'une série sur Rickwaert, toujours impeccablement interprété par Kad Merad (même si le voir beugler et sortir des métaphores à toit bout de champ use un peu à la longue) ou une série sur la politique et ses rouages, Baron Noir est devenue un portrait de la société française dans cette saison 3.S'attarder énormément sur le destin de Rickwaert et sa résurrection politique ôte de la profondeur au propos de la série.

Enfin, cette saison 3 subit des ellipses temporelles bien trop importantes. En huit épisodes, près de deux années s'écoulent, dont une entière au sein des deux derniers épisodes. La précipitation de l'écriture gâche souvent la puissance de certaines situations, d'autant plus au vu du nombre de rebondissements et de chemins différents que peut prendre chaque personnage en seulement quelques minutes.

Ainsi, plusieurs passages et moments clés de l'intrigue n'ont pas le temps de vivre à l'écran et de faire ressentir une quelconque émotion aux spectateurs. Un choix d'écriture négligeant que la série essaye de dissimuler parfois en jouant la carte du romanesque notamment dans son grand final. Malheureusement, l'intention reste très fabriquée et la conclusion de cette saison 3 est avant tout un cliffhanger/twist terriblement facile et opportuniste pour éjecter définitivement un de ses personnages. Reste à voir cependant ce qu'il provoquera au plus profond de Rickwaert dans la potentielle saison 4.

Les trois saisons de Baron Noir sont disponibles en intégralité sur Canal + Séries.

Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan book claims royal relations turned bitter / Harry angry at William's 'snobbish' advice about Meghan, book claims

July 25, 2020, 10:13 pm

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Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan book claims royal relations turned bitter

Biography in which Sussexes did not take part depicts deteriorating relationship with Prince William and Kate

Staff and agencies

Sat 25 Jul 2020 01.12 BSTLast modified on Sat 25 Jul 2020 09.27 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/25/harry-and-meghan-not-interviewed-for-royal-biography

Relations between the Sussexes and Prince William and his wife, Kate, deteriorated so much that by March the two couples were barely speaking, extracts from a book on Prince Harry and Meghan claims.

Finding Freedom, by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, claims the couples hardly spoke during an engagement at the Commonwealth service at Westminster Abbey despite not having seen each other since January amid the fallout of the Sussexes’ decision to step back from the royal family.

The book is due to be published in August and is being serialised in the Times and Sunday Times. Harry and his wife, Meghan, have said they were not interviewed for the biography and did not make any contributions to it.

The authors said the couple “liked being in control of their narrative” from the early days of their marriage. Being told to operate under Buckingham Palace’s umbrella after splitting their household from the Cambridges’ was “a big disappointment to them”.

“As their popularity had grown, so did Harry and Meghan’s difficulty in understanding why so few inside the palace were looking out for their interests. They were a major draw for the royal family.”

The authors describe a culture of bitterness and resentment gradually growing between the Sussexes and other members of the royal family.

Prince Harry felt ‘unprotected’ by his family

Extracts from the book say the Sussexes felt their complaints were not taken seriously and believed other royal households were leaking stories about them to the press.

“There were just a handful of people working at the palace they could trust … A friend of the couple’s referred to the old guard as ‘the vipers’. Meanwhile a frustrated palace staffer described the Sussexes’ team as ‘the squeaky third wheel’ of the palace.”

Harry and Meghan arrive at Royal Albert Hall in London in March.

Harry and Meghan arrive at the Royal Albert Hall in London in March. The book says Harry believed some of the old guard ‘simply didn’t like Meghan and would stop at nothing to make her life difficult’.

The book is also reported to say that Harry felt “unprotected” by his family and disparaged within palace walls for being “too sensitive and outspoken”. He believed some of the old guard “simply didn’t like Meghan and would stop at nothing to make her life difficult”.

Scobie said it was hard for Meghan as a mixed-race American to join the royal family. “That was going to ruffle some feathers.”

The Sussexes considered the extreme measure of breaking royal protocol to contact his grandmother, the Queen, as tensions grew in the family. Harry spoke to his father, Prince Charles, and the Queen about the need to change things before he left for Canada for six weeks at the end of 2019.

The authors write: “He felt at once used for their popularity, hounded by the press because of the public’s fascination with this new breed of royal couple, and disparaged back within the institution’s walls.”

While in Canada the couple decided to step back as senior royals. The book claims Harry attempted to set up a meeting with his grandmother at the start of January but was told she was unavailable until the end of the month.

In the extract published in the Times, the authors write that as the couple flew back to the UK they “toyed with the idea of driving straight from the terminal to see the Queen”.

But this was abandoned because they decided it could have “ruffled feathers” and caused them difficulty.

A website designed to clarify Harry and Meghan’s future was “deeply upsetting” to members of the royal family and “hurt the Queen”, the book claims, saying the couple were forced to take action after a story broke that they were going to stay in Canada permanently.

The book’s authors write that a royal source denied leaking the story, instead blaming the couple “because they were frustrated at the palace in the talks that were going on … They wanted to force the decision, to break it open.”

The couple deny this claim, the Times reports.

In Finding Freedom a source said the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were ‘devastated’ by the Sussexes’ website.

On 8 January Harry and Meghan used their Instagram page to share the news of their future plans and launched the website sussexroyal.com.

The website took everyone by surprise, the authors write.

“Aides and family members knew the couple wanted to step back, but the website, which laid out the details of their half-in-half-out model as if it were a done deal, put the Queen in a difficult position.”

Buckingham Palace put out a short statement 15 minutes after the Sussexes made theirs, but aides, including the Queen’s private secretary, were “furious”. And there was significant reaction from fellow royals, with a source saying the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were “devastated”.

A senior member of the household was quoted in the book as saying: “The element of surprise, the blindsiding of the Queen, for the other principals who are all very mindful of this, rightfully, it was deeply unsettling.

“The family is very private and bringing it into the public domain, when they were told not to, hurt the Queen.

“It was laying out what the Sussexes wanted in a statement without consulting with Her Majesty first – and she’s the head of the institution.”

The book’s authors write that the Queen told Harry his proposed arrangement would not work, prompting him to search for solutions across several days of intense meetings with top aides from all three royal households.

One aide made a joke about Meghan launching a line of cosmetics, while another source is quoted in the book as saying: “The biggest row was over money, because it always is.”

In April 2019, Kensington Palace announced Harry was working with the US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey on a mental health documentary series.

The couple have promised that “everything they do will continue to uphold the values of Her Majesty”.

As the excerpts were published, a statement on behalf of Harry and Meghan said: “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not interviewed and did not contribute to Finding Freedom. This book is based on the authors’ own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting.”

With Reuters and the Press Association

Harry angry at William's 'snobbish' advice about Meghan, book claims

Prince William said to have feared brother was ‘blindsided’ by lust in his haste to marry

Caroline Davies

Sun 26 Jul 2020 12.00 BSTLast modified on Sun 26 Jul 2020 19.05 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/26/harry-angry-william-snobbish-advice-meghan-book-claims

The royal rift that led to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leaving Britain and stepping back from royal duties began after Prince William feared his brother had been “blindsided” by lust in his haste to marry Meghan Markle, a new book claims.

Harry was offended by William’s advice to “take as much time as you need to get to know this girl”, causing tension between the two that finally led to “Megxit” , according to the authors of Finding Freedom.

He was allegedly angered by the words “this girl”, perceiving it as “snobbish” and “condescending”.

The Sussexes have distanced themselves from the book, by the royal correspondents Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, with a spokesman for the Sussexes saying they were not interviewed and did not contribute to Finding Freedom, which was “based on the authors’ own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting”.

In it, the authors claim to chronicle the deteriorating relationships between the Sussexes, senior royals, and the palace “old guard”. One senior royal is said to have referred to Meghan as “Harry’s showgirl”, while another allegedly said: “She comes with a lot of baggage.”

A senior courtier is said to have remarked: “There’s just something about her I don’t trust.” One frustrated palace staffer is said to have referred to Meghan as “the squeaky third wheel” of the palace. The book claims the couple thought there was only a handful of people at the palace they could trust, while a friend of theirs referred to the old guard as “the vipers”.

In extracts serialised in the Times and Sunday Times, the authors claim there was no actual feud between Kate and Meghan, contrary to press reports, but that the two women had nothing in common. Kate would reach out to Meghan, but “didn’t lose sleep” over it when she did not respond, while Meghan was disappointed by Kate’s lack of support, according to the book.

Rather, the authors claim, the alleged rift between the two couples was due to a growing coolness between Harry and William. By March, at the time of the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey, the couples were said to be barely speaking. Scobie told the Times Meghan had tried to make eye contact with Kate at the service, but had been barely acknowledged. “To purposefully snub your sister-in-law … I don’t think it left a great taste in the couple’s mouths.”

Harry and Meghan’s decision to cut free grew out of Harry’s belief they were unprotected by the institutions around the monarchy and derided by the old guard for being too sensitive and outspoken, the book claims.

This apparently led to their decision to move to Windsor. “He wanted to get away from the goldfish bowl that was Kensington Palace,” the authors said. It is also claimed they believed other royal households were leaking stories about them to the press.

Once they decamped to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, thus splitting from the Cambridges at Kensington Palace, it was apparently “a big disappointment” to them to be told they must operate under Buckingham Palace’s umbrella. The authors wrote: “As their popularity had grown, so did Harry and Meghan’s difficulty in understanding why so few inside the palace were looking out for their interests. They were a major draw for the royal family.”

Having spent Christmas in Canada away from palace pressure, and formulated plans to move there, they were unable to immediately see the Queen to discuss their plans. Believing they were being blocked from seeing the monarch, they even considered breaking protocol by springing a surprise visit by driving straight to see her from the airport terminal after landing back in the UK, it was claimed.

When they made their “Megxit” announcement on a new website, Sussexroyal.com, aides including the Queen’s private secretary were said to be furious, and the Queen and Prince Philip apparently devastated.

Neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace have commented.

Author of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's biography Omid Scobie says even the Sussexes 'didn't expect things to turn out the way they did' and promises book will be the definitive version' of their lives

British journalist Omid Scobie discussd the release of Harry and Meghan's bio

Says it feels nice to finally talk about the project after  'beavering away at quietly for two years'

Admitted even the Sussexes didn't expect things to turn out the way they did

 Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family is set to be released worldwide online on August 11

With Reuters and the Press Association

By JESSICA RACH FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 12:06 BST, 6 May 2020 | UPDATED: 14:42 BST, 8 May 2020

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8292189/Author-Prince-Harry-Meghan-Markles-biography-Finding-Freedom-Omid-Scobie-speaks-out.html

The author of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's much-anticipated biography Omid Scobie has admitted it feels nice to 'finally be able to talk about' the project he's been 'beavering away at quietly for two years'.

British journalist Omid Scobie, who has accompanied Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan Markle, 38, on a variety of royal tours, took to the podcast The Heir Pod to discuss the release of the book.

Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family is set to be released worldwide online on August 11, with the hard copy on sale from August 20 and was released to pre-order over the weekend.

And Omid admitted that their tale has included twists and turns that 'even the Sussexes didn't expect'.

Speaking about finishing the biography, he said: 'It's been a long time in the making. The last few weeks have been quite a challenge getting it all ready in time for the deadline.

'It feels nice to finally be able to talk about it after quietly beavering away on it for a long time.'

He added: 'This project started about two years ago, and there have been twists and turns that no one expected. This is something no one expected.

'I don't even think Harry and Meghan, who by their own account struggled with the realities of the situation, expected things to turn out the way they did.'

Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of A Modern Royal Family is set to be released worldwide online on August 11, with the hard copy on sale from August 20 and was released to pre-order over the weekend

Explaining that the biography gives a real inside account of their story, he said: 'I've been on so many engagements and around them as much as possible, and spoken to so many people in their lives, so no stone has been left unturned.

'I've seen the couple remain faithful in their own beliefs and stand strong in the face of adversities which have been publicly played out in the press, and I would like to think this tells the definitive version of their lives together.'

British journalist Omid Scobie, who has accompanied Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan Markle, 38, on a variety of royal tours, took to the podcast The Heir Pod to discuss the release of the book

British journalist Omid Scobie, who has accompanied Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan Markle, 38, on a variety of royal tours, took to the podcast The Heir Pod to discuss the release of the book

Publishing house Harper Collins, which owns Dey Street Books, the publisher of the biography released a brief description of Meghan and Prince Harry's collaboration with the two journalists.

The book's description says that 'few know the true story of Harry and Meghan'.

It promises to go 'beyond the headlines to reveal unknown details of Harry and Meghan's life together, dispelling the many rumours and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond'.

It continues: 'With unique access and written with the participation of those closest to the couple, Finding Freedom is an honest, up-close, and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple who are unafraid to break with tradition, determined to create a new path away from the spotlight, and dedicated to building a humanitarian legacy that will make a profound difference in the world.'

A description of the biography on Amazon promises to offer an 'honest, up-close, and disarming portrait' of the 'confident, influential, forward' Prince Harry , 35, and Meghan Markle, 38 (seen on their wedding day in May 2018)      +4

A description of the biography on Amazon promises to offer an 'honest, up-close, and disarming portrait' of the 'confident, influential, forward' Prince Harry , 35, and Meghan Markle, 38 (seen on their wedding day in May 2018)

The cover features a beaming Prince Harry and Meghan as they visited their namesake county in October 2018 for the first time.

 The Mail on Sunday were told that before moving to North America, the Sussexes gave an interview to the book's authors, both journalists.

One of them, Omid Scobie, is thought to be close to Meghan and was one of the favoured journalists given details of the couple's video call to the Queen last week in which they wished her a happy 94th birthday.

Echoing Princess Diana's secret involvement in the blockbuster biography, Diana: Her True Story, when she encouraged her friends to speak to author Andrew Morton, questions are being asked whether members of Meghan's inner circle were being urged to help Scobie and his American co-author, Carolyn Durand.

The 320-page biography, due to be released in August, is expected to be a global bestseller.

Harry and Meghan 'did not contribute' to new book Finding Freedom 25-07-2020 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53535221?at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64&at_medium=custom7&at_custom3=BBC+News&at_custom4=4099D4BC-CE5C-11EA-969A-3F994D484DA4&at_custom2=facebook_page&fbclid=IwAR0zayCXrWsFCdf6AulLzIgWMY3Oag50KCtruaODER76ZA6OwaHJyD65YTE The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have denied contributing to a new book about their life in the Royal Family. The book, Finding Freedom - which is being serialised in the Times - has claimed the Sussexes and Cambridges were barely speaking by March. It also says friends of Prince Harry and Meghan referred to some Palace officials as "vipers". A spokesman for the Sussexes, who now live in California, said they had not been interviewed for the book. A statement said: "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not interviewed and did not contribute to Finding Freedom. "This book is based on the authors' own experiences as members of the royal press corps and their own independent reporting." The book's authors, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, describe a culture of increasing tension between the Sussexes and other members of the Royal Family. They say the Sussexes felt their complaints were not taken seriously and believed other royal households were leaking stories about them to the press. "There were just a handful of people working at the palace they could trust," the authors write. "A friend of the couple's referred to the old guard as 'the vipers'. "Meanwhile, a frustrated palace staffer described the Sussexes' team as 'the squeaky third wheel' of the palace." The duke and duchess are now based in Los Angeles, California, having stepped back as senior royals earlier this year. For their last public appearance as working members of the Royal Family, they joined the Queen and other senior royals at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on 9 March. They have since begun their new life of personal independence in the US, pursuing charity projects. There are some startling headlines accompanying the serialisation of Finding Freedom but those in search of a smoking gun may be disappointed. Reliable, quotable sources are the hard currency of books about royalty. And Finding Freedom is quite well sourced. The authors have leant heavily on contacts in the different courts - Buckingham Palace for the Queen, Kensington Palace for William and Kate, 'the Sussexes' for Harry and Meghan. And they have spoken to at least one person, maybe more, who feels he or she can speak for, and at times quote, Meghan herself, and at least one friend of Prince Harry who feels he or she can do the same. So some flesh is put on the bones of a story that we know quite well but despite the headlines there are no new properly sourced revelations in the book as serialised so far. We knew that William and Harry's relationship was badly damaged; Harry told ITN's Tom Bradby that in the interview he gave in late 2019. We knew that Meghan felt abandoned by the Palace; she went out of her way to make that point to Bradby in the same programme. We knew that the Queen was upset by the couple's declaration of independence in January this year - senior Palace sources told the BBC within hours of the couple's statement. And we knew that Harry despises the media and some of its coverage of Meghan; he has spoken openly and very clearly about how he feels. So Finding Freedom may be more rewarding for the rounded portrait it paints of a couple at the centre of a terrible whirlwind than in any particular revelation about who did what to whom, and when. Earlier this month, Meghan delivered a speech to a gender equality summit, while the duke and duchess also spoke to young people about equal rights during the Queen's Commonwealth Trust weekly video call. Meanwhile, the Sussexes have launched legal action in the US after drones were allegedly used to take pictures of their infant son Archie. The move marked the latest example of the Sussexes actions against what they have previously described as "invasive" tabloid media. Meghan is also suing the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online for breach of privacy and copyright infringement. The publisher denies her claims.