WHAT'S ON IN LONDON?
Citizens and Kings: Royal Academy 3 Feb- 20 April 2007 Citizens and Kings: Portraits in the Age of Revolution will give an in-depth view, through sculpted and painted portraits, of an era characterised by sweeping political and social changes. www.royalacademy.org.uk/events/
Hogarth, Tate Britain, 7 Feb- 29 April No other artist’s work has come to define a period of British history as powerfully and enduringly as that of Hogarth. The exhibition incorporates the full range of Hogarth's work, highlighting his unique contribution to the development of modern British art. www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/hogarth/default.shtm
Renoir Landscapes 1865 - 1883, National Gallery, 21 Feb - 20 May Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) painted landscapes throughout his life. However, during the first two decades of his long career they constituted an especially important area of experimentation for the artist where he explored composition, paint handling and pictorial structure in innovative new ways. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/renoirlandscapes/default.htm
The Unknown Monet: Pastels And Drawings, Royal Academy of Arts, 17 March – 10 June 2007 The first exhibition to be devoted to Monet’s drawings and pastels will open at the Royal Academy of Arts in March. The exhibition will offer a groundbreaking exploration of the role of draftsmanship in Monet’s long career, demonstrating the relationship between his drawings, pastels and paintings. www.royalacademy.org.uk/events/
To the top of the pageBRITAIN & IRELAND :
DUBLIN’S FAIR CITY has been cited by the European Environmental Agency as a worst case scenario of urban planning. It confirms what we all know about the city’s traffic where urban sprawl has run out of hand and a lack of local shops and amenities causes people to travel further. The study is to be used to show newer members of the EU how not to do it.
WATCH THAT TOWER! The last of the British Army watchtowers in Northern Ireland, at Crossmaglen, 15 km west of the Dublin – Belfast road, is being demolished. These towers were ‘watch and listening posts’ at the height of IRA activities. The Crossmaglen tower was built in the police station and surmounted by a missile and bullet proof pod (Sanger). Access for troops was only by helicopter and they lived in bomb proof bunkers.
NEW BRITISH PASSPORT? Although the passports issued by the British government are valid for 10 years they are only guaranteed for two. These new electronic passports have a chip that has an unknown life and are unproven in general use. Should they fail they will be replaced IF they are within the first 2 years, after that you will have to pay for a new one. Treat it with care! Four million of these new versions have been issued, and the government has been criticised for the high (£66) cost, partly brought about by the fact that the agencies involved – Foreign Office, Identity and Passport Service, and Immigration and Nationality Directorate - all purchased equipment from different suppliers.
WEST HIGHLANDS TOURISM is promoting the area as the place where John Lennon loved to holiday. From the times when, as a boy, the family spent their summers in a croft near Durness these were happy days. He later returned with Yoko Ono but had a car accident which put him in hospital for 5 days, and later she had the car taken to their home in Ascot where it was mounted on a plinth as Yoko deemed it “a happening”.
Prince Charles, as the Duke of Rothesay, spends part of his summers at the Castle of Mey in Caithness which was restored by his grandmother and is now a local tourist attraction.
HYGIENE: The building of sewers was probably the greatest advancement in health, as, until then, inadequate sanitation accounted for 80% of illness around the world, killing about 14,000 people per day. Before the building of sewers in Britain half the children did not live to the age of 5, mostly because of water-borne germs, then, in Victorian times, the construction of sewage systems and enclosed water piping meant infant mortality dropped to 1%. The popularity of beer and tea also meant that drinking liquids were made with boiled water, killing germs, and the prevalence of diluting spirits and wine with polluted water dropped.
NOT MY LUCKY DAY: A woman in west England was caught in the gales in January and had to abandon her car when a tree crashed through the windscreen. She returned to find a parking ticket, and then her car stereo was stolen.
LONDON PROPERTY is in the news again as a 12ft x 6ft basement room in Chelsea is on offer at £170,000 (a snip at over £2,000 per sq ft) with an expected £30,000 needed to make it habitable expected rent £150 per week;
A 3 bedroom flat in Eaton Square, Belgravia has been sold for £ 12 million (£3,000 per sq ft). Comparisons for average house prices are: London £1.200, Brighton £232 and Leeds £147 per sq foot. Note the minimum requirement for a prison cell in Britain is 60 sq ft.
Four new penthouse “apartments” in an 80 flat complex called One Hyde Park are on sale overlooking Hyde Park at prices up to £84 (€120) million each. They are high security with bullet proof windows and an underground tunnel connecting to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel which will provide concierge services.
There is a move for upmarket apartments in London, recently the Thistle at Lancaster Gate filed for planning permission to convert to luxury apartments mainly aimed at the banking and trading professionals. The Tara at South Kensington will probably go the same way.
HARD TIMES FOR COAL: The catastrophe that befell coal was always coming. In 1870 the UK produced half the world’s black diamonds; by the mid-1920s it was producing little more than a fifth. Alternative fuels, such as oil and hydroelectric power, were hurting demand, while Africa, India and China could dig out supplies at a third of the cost. Perversely, the Versailles treaty, which was supposed to punish Germany after the first world war, dealt a further blow to Britain’s miners by arranging reparations in coal. The result was a halving of miners’ earnings, leading to the strike. Miners generally had a strong work ethic, expressed no class bitterness, and simply wanted a wage they could live on, however the post WWI feeling in Britain was to change lives and politics. In 1931, 5 years after the General Strike, Britain was in crisis - after a run on sterling, the prime minister had offered to resign and unemployment in South Yorkshire was running at 45%.
Driving past Sheffield we often talk of the coal industry and the fall of the unions. Now a new book called Black Diamonds tells of one of the dynasties of the coal fields, the Fitzwilliams, and their home just north of Sheffield. It is a fascinating story and a review of this book can be found on the following link:
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/article1344546.ece
AROUND EUROPE :
FIGURE IT OUT: The Dutch are the tallest people in the World. A recent report shows that young Dutchmen are 4.7 cm taller than their white American counterparts and Dutch women are 5.7 cm taller. The Netherlands regulates a minimum door height of 2.3 metres (7.5 ft.). The report lays the blame on nutrition, citing the rise in fast food in America as a major reason.
Another report, shows that the USA has slipped out of the world’s top ten rankings for per capita income to 11th place. The UK is 18th.
GDP per capita Country 2007 2006
1 Liechtenstein $113k $105k
2 Luxembourg $100k $ 88k
3 Bermuda $ 85k $ 80k
4 Norway $ 75k $ 69k
5 Qatar $ 65k $ 62k
6 Ireland $ 57k $ 51k
7 Denmark $ 57k $ 50k
8 Switzerland $ 54k $ 50k
9 Iceland $ 52k $ 50k
10 Sweden $ 48k £ 41k
EUROPEAN AFFAIRS The European Parliament has called for a zero alcohol level for professional (including coach, truck and taxi drivers) and new drivers. 40,000 people die on the road each year across Europe; 10,000 are the result of alcohol.
BLOOD DIAMONDS: A film with Leonardo di Caprio is bound to pull audiences and create opinions. His latest film focuses on the nasty side of diamond mining and corruption in the trade. However not all of the products are affected and we need to educate passengers on the safety of purchases. The World Diamond Council, whose members are producers and the primary marketing forces in the diamond trade, has launched a website that explains how to be aware of illegal trade. We take our clients to diamond works in Antwerp or Amsterdam where they will be told about the industry, but “breaking the ice” before arrival will help your sales. Go to www.diamondfacts.org for the background into mining, trade and the positive side of the industry to help people understand.
SCANDANAVIAN SCENE: SPACE PORT SWEDEN is open for business. Sited at Kiruna 200kms inside the Arctic Circle this was the site of the first rocket launch in Sweden in 1961. Now run by the state owned Swedish Space Corporation, it has signed up Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to begin offering space flights for tourists. The first test flight is expected to start in 2008 from a base in West America, with the first commercial 2 hour flight in 2009 that will cost about €155,000. The company will later use a European base for some launches, the ICE HOTEL is situated nearby so sell an optional!
RUSSIA: Controls have been put in place to limit the movement of people from old Soviet States in Russia. Fighting broke out in a St Petersburg market between Chechen traders and some of the people who objected to their presence after terrorist reports. As a result many of the traders have been sent back to their home states and now the big markets in St Petersburg and Moscow are closing as there are no goods to sell.
VENICE: BRIDGE of SIGHS: 18 months ago the projected bridge connecting Piazzale Roma with the Station in Venice was in trouble due to overspend and delays. Now the components have finally been moved on site, and erection is underway. The Ponte di Calatrava, named after the Spanish architect, should be open during the summer. Pro’s include a more direct link between the parking garages and the station, and loosening up of the area on the Piazzale Roma side. The prefabricated sections have been brought in over the last 2 summers and will form a single arch so as not to interfere with canal traffic. Detractors say that unless construction is correct to a millimetre the bridge will collapse under the weight of pedestrians. The site has meant that access is by steps and so disabled access is going to be provided by egg shaped lifts - if they get around to it! The architect is known for his daring and spectacular designs, and has built bridges in Dublin, Dallas, Buenos Aires and Lisbon. He was also involved in the Athens Olympic project. Go to www.calatrava.com
MORE SIGHS – A Tale of 2 collections: Nothing in Venice ever seems to be simple - the Guggenheim Foundation’s Venice collection is housed in the Palazzo Vernier dei Leone but they need more room! Francois Pinault, who has Yves St Laurent, Gucci, Christies and Printemps, has a magnificent modern art collection but is so frustrated with bureaucracy in his attempts to open a state-of-the-art gallery on the Ile Seguin in Paris that he has given up trying. He took over the Palazzo Grassi in Venice from the Agnelli family, but wants a better, more spacious site. Along comes the Punta della Dogana, an old customs warehouse on Dorsoduro, next to Santa Maria della Salute. Both groups have commissioned architects to produce proposals for the site, but the committee that makes the final decision is split, finding equal merit in both. Politically the Mayor, centre left, is in favour of Pinault, the Governor of the Veneto, centre right, prefers the Guggenheim. Although the collections are mostly of different periods (Guggenheim pre 1980’s and the Pinault post 1980) they have ruled out any collaboration.
CHIMING THE HOURS: Following the renovation of the Clock Tower in St Marks, work on the Campanile is due to start in May. Although surveys have found the structure to be safe there have been “small structural shifts” so an 18 month, €6 million project will insert a Titanium Girdle around the base and stabilise the foundations. During the work there will be no public access to the tower.
FLORENCE: One of Michelangelo’s last jobs in Florence was the Medici Chapels in Florence’s oldest church – the 4th Century St Lorenzo’s Basilica, an alternative for us when the Academy is unavailable. Recently some of the tombs were opened to take DNA samples for analysis to settle disputes about the paternity of some of the Medicis buried there. The building is unimposing from the outside as the façade was never completed after first being interrupted by a break in the rule of the Medici family and then Michelangelo’s move to Rome in 1534 to work on the Last Judgement in the Sistine from whence he never returned. Now a project is due to complete the façade according to his designs, based on sketches and a wooden model in the Casa Buonarotti Museum. Three of his columns have been located in Pisa and several others are known to have been buried in the 17th Century near the church, and other parts are being sought. At the end of February a digital reconstruction was projected onto the present brick façade to show the design.
REST OF THE WORLD :
THAT SINKING FEELING: Bangkok’s new airport opened last year with the world’s largest hanger and tallest control tower, but it is built on Cobra Swamp and subsidence has caused some flights to be diverted to an old military base near Pattaya. The old airport, Don Muang, will have to be reopened to take an overspill from the new airport, where 11 of the 51 loading piers are cracked and runways, taxiways and aprons are unstable. If you are taking a group there or meeting incomings check in advance.
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