Mick Jagger’s Poignant Tribute To L’Wren

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After the death of his girlfriend of 13 years Mike Jagger has released a loving tribute to her on his Facebook page. L’Wren died yesterday at the young age of 49. She will be much missed in the fashion community and beyond.

L'Wren Scott

 

I am still struggling to understand how my lover and best friend could end her life in this tragic way.

We spent many wonderful years together and had made a great life for ourselves.

She had great presence and her talent was much admired, not least by me.

I have been touched by the tributes that people have paid to her, and also the personal messages of support that I have received.

I will never forget her,
Mick

 

Post by Mick Jagger.

The Financial Times Guide to Management Book Review

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For those in business, or hoping to be, management is very important. Or to be more precise, being good at management and doing it properly is important. This guide to management comes from The Financial Times and is written by Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute. So far so impressive.

Ann Franckle book The Financial Times Guide to Management

Also impressive is that it has an entire chapter on managing yourself. I think this is a genius idea that not many books would think of. Getting yourself sorted out first obviously makes perfect sense: lead by example. Each chapter starts with what you will learn in that chapter and then ends with top tips, pitfalls and takeaways.

For all of the wealth of information in this book it is surprisingly easy to read. Add in the graphs, anecdotes and exercises then you have one hell of a book on management. Part 7 even has view from the front line: top tips, pitfalls and takeaways from top managers, along with views from the FT’s Finest.

FT Guide to Management: How to be a Manager Who Makes a Difference and Gets Results is an essential business book for managers. Don’t be without it.

What they say:

“Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute, writes a much needed straight talking guide to management.


According to a 2012 survey by CMI and Penna*, 43% of individuals rated their managers as ineffective or highly ineffective. This statistic will be no surprise to most – many surveys and research papers have revealed similarly gloomy results in recent years.

 

So why do we struggle to ‘get management right’? Probably because so many people have become ‘accidental managers’; they have been promoted into management positions due to specialist skills. Many are given little or no training when they are promoted and are left to work it out for themselves.  The mind boggling array of management books on the market does little to simplify the ‘management message’ as approaches are many and varied.

 

In response, Ann Francke, CEO of the CMI, has written The Financial Times Guide to Management. Backed by the wealth of CMI research, her extensive global management experience, and advice from over 40 frontline managers, Ann has created a straight talking and balanced guide to management.

 

It covers the full spectrum of management skills, including managing others, managing change, managing stakeholders, managing budgets and resources, creating business strategy and executing plans.  A chapter offering Views from the Front Line, grounds the book in practical advice, with over 40 senior executives sharing their top tips, pitfalls and takeaways. Contributors include Paul Polman (CEO, Unilever), Steve Marshall (Chairman, Balfour Beatty) and Cilla Snowball (Chairman and CEO, AMV BBDO).  In a similarly neat framework, a 20 page Guide to the Gurus takes readers through a pithy summary of the bestselling and most admired management gurus.

 

From motivating a team and developing star talent to controlling budgets and fostering innovation, The Financial Times Guide to Management is the authoritative guide to becoming an effective manager.”

 

The Financial Times Guide to Management, is published by Pearson.

 

 

Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc 2013 Review

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Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc 2013 is a sophisticated wine. Probably why they served it at the BAFTAs. Don’t let that stop you enjoying it regularly. This wine is perfect for every occasion. This wine is a brilliant, easy-to-drink sauvignon blanc. Perfect for every occasion. It is vibrant and has nuances of gooseberry, passion-fruit, fresh lime and melon.

Villa Maria Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc 2013 wine review

This wine is polished and pure with a good, long finish and with no horrible aftertaste. A good way to describe this wine is yummy. A good fail-safe for dinner parties too.

Enjoy with fish/shellfish, salads & picnics, mild creamy cheeses and grilled seasonal vegetables and seafood

Drink from now up to two years. ABV: 13%

Available from Tesco and Sainsbury’s

 

P20 Sun Protection Review: Once A Day Sun Protection

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P20 Sun Protection, sun protection, one application, lasts all day, beauty review, I am completely obsessed with sun protection and I think it has paid off. People are usually surprised when I tell them I am in my late-twenties. But it is not just wrinkles that it stops, it also protects you against burning and skin cancer.

Despite my love of sun protection, it sure is a pain. You have to reapply a lot and it usually explodes in your bag. Pretty annoying.

P20 Sun Protection is different. On the box it says it is water resistant, quick drying and lasts for 10 hours. I am pretty impressed and decide to review it.

It is a clear spray, always good to stop you looking like the joker from Batman. It does dry quickly. It is water resistant for up to 80 minutes. It doesn’t leave any white marks and doesn’t have any fragrance, colourants or preservatives. This is the perfect sun protection for me as I am always so busy and you can just apply and go.  You can also buy it in a spray.

I can recommend P20 Sun Protection. It works and it is fuss-free. Perfect for even my sensitive skin. Good stuff.

What they say:

“After over three decades of success, the new range of P20 which launched in 2013 comprises 3 new products. SPFs 15, 30 and 50+ join the iconic SPF20 – providing long-lasting protection for all skin types.

 

Active 15 minutes after application, P20 contains both UVA and UVB filters, providing broad spectrum sun protection for up to 10 hours and uses a unique, alcohol-based formula that sets it apart from traditional cream-type sun products.  The very water resistant formula is clear, non-greasy, fragrance and paraben free, to provide the ultimate coverage.

 

The long-lasting formula is clear, fragrance and paraben free and is available in SPFs 15, 30 and 50+ as well as the iconic SPF20. The new range is available in both 200ml and a travel friendly 100ml size from all major grocery and pharmacy retailers.  The RRP (recommended retail price) of P20 is 100ml £13.29 and 200ml £24.49. Available from Superdrug and Ocado”

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots By Jessica Soffer Book Review

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Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots By Jessica SofferTomorrow There Will be Apricots is written by Jessica Soffer who is a mere 25-years-old. It is an impressive book, drawing you in immediately and not letting you go until the very last page. Not one word is wasted in this heartwarming- and at times heartbreaking- book about redemption, love and food.

It is impossible to not fall in love with the characters: Lorca, a troubled 13-year-old who just wants her cold mothers loves and will go to any length to get it, and Victoria, recently widowed and finding it hard to cope. They find themselves through cooking and friendship.

I don’t want to give too many spoilers but this absolutely amazing book is now one of my favourites. I love the characters and I learned a lot about food and other cultures. I was very hungry when I was reading it and even got inspired to learn how to cook. No mean feat for someone who usually hates cooking. Buy this, steal this*, borrow this: just read it.

*not really.

 

Two women adrift in New York – an Iraqi immigrant widow and the latchkey daughter of a famous chef – find each other and a new kind of family through their shared love of cooking.

 

Lorca, a sensitive and troubled thirteen-year-old, spends hours poring over cookbooks, seeking out ingredients for her distracted chef of a mother, who is about to send her off to boarding school. In one last effort to secure her mother’s love and prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to replicate her mother’s ideal meal.

 

Victoria, an octogenarian Iraqi immigrant, teaches cooking lessons. Grappling with grief over her husband’s death, Victoria has been dreaming of the daughter they gave up forty years ago.

 

Together these two women – a widow and an almost-orphan – begin to suspect they are connected through more than a love of food.

Tomorrow There Will be Apricots

Split Second – Quick Divorces

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Split second – quick divorces

image credit: apdk

image credit: apdk

As the old saying goes, you marry in haste and repent at leisure. It is a piece of old wisdom, though, that many celebrities, in particular, appear to ignore. TIME magazine has even compiled a Top 10 list of short-lived celebrity marriages, with the clever intro: Forget “till death do us part” – these celebrities couldn’t even make it a year. Their headline heartbreak story is Kim Kardashian and NBA-player husband Kris Humphries, who headed for the divorce courts after just 72 days of nuptial nightmare.

Given that celebrities are constantly in the public eye – for good and bad reasons, it is inevitable that any romantic shortcomings are going to be highlighted more than your average Joe and Josephine. How else would gossip magazines survive without having any high-profile splits to fill their column inches?

But that’s not to say lightning-quick divorces don’t happen in the real world, too. In the UK you can get a divorce if you have been married at least a year and your relationship has permanently broken down. Once a petition for divorce has been filed the process can take only a matters of weeks or drag on for over a year, depending on the complexities of each case. If custody of children is a consideration or if financial settlements or the reason for the divorce in the first place is being disputed, then the process will obviously not be over in a split second. Routinely, the timescale will be affected by how crowded the Court’s calendar is as well as how cooperative both parties are.

Having a pre-nuptial agreement may also help smooth things long quite considerably. A recent divorce lawyers’ article on “quickie divorces” reported that these arrangements, often glibly referenced in conversations about the rich and famous, may soon become legally binding documents for all.  You can read more here: http://www.blasermills.co.uk/news-and-articles/news/a-quickie-divorce/

As things stand, it is still a widely held belief that should either party require the reassurance of a pre-nuptial agreement then there are clearly trust issues that need to be addressed before either party walks down the aisle.

But, without a shadow of doubt, they are becoming more popular. Clearly, you don’t have to have a Bentley or a luxurious retreat in the Maldives nowadays to warrant one. As the average age of first-time marriages continues to increase, couples tend to have more personal assets of their own which they are becoming increasingly keen to protect against if there are any hitches upon getting hitched. According to a new survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), 63 percent of divorce attorneys say they’ve seen an increase in prenuptial agreements during the past three years.

Clearly, there are obvious pros and cons and arguments for and against pre-nuptials, but it really does come down to the needs of the individuals involved, and whether you’re a couple where the heart rules the head or vice-versa.

Welcome To The Cinema of Childhood | Film News

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Filmhouse, Edinburgh has announced a UK-wide film season, Cinema of Childhood, curated by filmmaker Mark Cousins and inspired by his latest feature documentary, A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM, released in cinemas April 4th (Dogwoof).

boot

The Cinema Of Childhood season will launch April 11th at Filmhouse, BFI Southbank, and other key venues across the UK. The season, which will tour the UK for a year, includes 17 brilliant films from 12 countries, spanning 7 decades. Most have rarely been seen in the UK – some are totally new to UK audiences.

“These are some of the best films you’ve never had a chance to see,” Cousins says. “Films about childhood take us on fantastic voyages. E.T.: THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL was a magical bike ride across the moon. THE JUNGLE BOOK showed us the bare necessities.  A boy in THE RED BALLOON stole our hearts.  But beyond these mainstream and arthouse classics, there’s a world of great cinema about kids which is hardly known, but just as brilliant.  Welcome to that world.  Jump into it.”

“Fly to the moon on gossamer wings with the little boy in Astrid Henning-Jensen’s PALLE ALONE IN THE WORLD from 1949.  Get close to the flame of life with Renko, in Shinji Somai’s 1993 masterpiece, MOVING.  Body-swerve the bullies in Karel Kachyna’s Czech cinematic wonder, LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC, from 1965. See LITTLE FUGITIVE, the American film from 1953 which helped inspire the French New Wave. Discover the work of one of the world’s greatest movie-makers,
Mohammad-Ali Talebi from Iran with three of his best films – THE BOOT, BAG OF RICE, and his poetic masterpiece WILLOW AND WIND.” Mohammad-Ali Talebi will visit the UK for the first time in April, as a guest of the British Council to launch the season with Mark Cousins at BFI Southbank, Filmhouse and other venues to be announced.

Most of the titles in the season are featured in Mark’s documentary A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year to 5-star reviews, and has since been acclaimed at many other major festivals worldwide, including Edinburgh, Karlovy Vary, Telluride, Toronto, Stockholm and Dubai.

The season opens up a world of wonder for audiences of all ages who are keen to explore beyond Hollywood’s idea of childhood. The films are both specific to their own time and culture, but also universal in their depiction of childhood emotions, hopes and fears. Children everywhere have so much in common – only the worlds they inhabit are different.

Emotionally engaging with audiences from 8 to 80, Cinema of Childhood invites filmgoers to go on a global adventure with Mark, to discover previously unknown movie masterpieces and to see the world anew through young eyes. Uplifting and exhilarating, these are films to brighten your day.

 

The season is managed by Filmhouse, which has licensed the films for a year, and is creating new digital materials where necessary to make the films available to the widest possible range of cinema venues.   Filmhouse has also licensed the VoD rights for many of the titles, enabling audiences to watch these titles at their own convenience from home or on the move via Filmhouse Player.

The project is backed by the BFI’s Programming Development Fund, awarding funds from the National Lottery. The producer of the season is Adam Dawtrey, who also produced (with Mary Bell) A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM.
Filmhouse (Edinburgh) and BFI Southbank (London) will programme the entire season from April to June. Other venues already confirmed to host Cinema of Childhood include Queen’s Theatre (Belfast), Chapter Arts Centre (Cardiff), Broadway (Nottingham), Dundee Contemporary Arts, Glasgow Film Theatre, Eden Court Theatre (Inverness), the Roses Theatre (Tewkesbury), Duke of York’s (Brighton), Watershed (Bristol), Cornerhouse (Manchester) and Showroom (Sheffield),along with selected Picturehouse and Curzon cinemas nationwide. Films from the season will also screen at special festival events, including the Glasgow Youth Film Festival screening ofThe White Balloon on 9th February, Zoom International Youth Film Festival and WoW Festival in March, and the Brighton Festival in May.
Further venues will be announced in due course.

In addition there are plans to screen films from Cinema of Childhood in partnership with several organisations concerned with child welfare. These screenings, which will be targeted at a mixed audience of childcare experts and the general public, will explore representations of childhood from a professional perspective, looking at issues from different cultural and global viewpoints.

 

The full list of titles screening in the Cinema of Childhood season are:
• “Willow and Wind” (Bid-o Baad). Iran, Japan, 1999. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 77 mins. A boy breaks a school window, and must mend it himself before he’s allowed back in class.

• “Bag of Rice” (Kiseye Berendje). Iran, Japan, 1998. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 80 mins. A little girl and an old blind lady decide to carry a sack of rice across Tehran.

• “The Boot” (Chakmeh). Iran 1993. D. Mohammad-Ali Talebi. 60 mins. A little girl craves a new pair of red wellies – but then loses one.

• “The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun” (La petite vendeuse de soleil). Senegal, Switzerland, France, Germany 1999. D. Djibril Diop Mambety. 45 min. A feisty crippled girl tries to improve her life by selling newspapers on the streets of Dakar.

• “Hugo and Josephine” (Hugo och Josefin). Sweden, 1967. D. Kjell Grede. 82 mins. The lonely daughter of a rural pastor makes friends with a wild boy who lives in the woods.

• “The King of Masks” (Bian Lian) China, Hong Kong, 1997. D. Wu Tian-Ming. 91 mins. An old illusionist buys a young boy to become his apprentice – but the boy isn’t quite what he seems.

• “The White Balloon” (Badkonake sefid) Iran 1995. D. Jafar Panahi. 85 mins. A stubborn little girl wants a new goldfish, and won’t let anything get in her way.

• “Tomka and his Friends” (Tomka dhe shokët e tij) Albania, 1977. D. Xhanfise Keko. 78 mins. A gang of Albanian boys in WW2 become secret agents for the Resistance when German troops occupy their village.

• “Palle Alone in the World” (Palle alene i verden). Denmark 1949. D. Astrid Henning-Jensen. 25 min. A boy wakes up to find Copenhagen deserted, and it becomes his giant playground.

• “Ten Minutes Older”. (Par desmit minutem vecaks). Latvia 1978. D. Herz Frank. 10 mins. One close-up, 10 minutes long, of a small boy’s face as he watches a thrilling puppet show.

• “Long Live the Republic” (At’ zije republika) Czechoslovakia, 1965. D. Karel Kachyna, 134 mins. A bullied boy tries to survive in a Czech village as the Germans retreat and the Russians advance.

•  “Moving” (Ohikkoshi) Japan, 1993. D. Shinji Sômai. 124 mins. A girl struggles to come to terms with her parents’ divorce.

• “Forbidden Games” (Jeux interdits). France, 1952. D. René Clément. 86 mins. A boy and a girl retreat into a fantasy world to escape the horrors of WW2.

• “Crows” (Wrony). Poland, 1994. D. Dorota KÄdzierzawska. 63 mins. A neglected girl steals a younger girl to become her surrogate mother.

• “Little Fugitive”. USA 1953. Dir Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, Ruth Orkin. 80 mins. A 7-year-old boy runs away to Coney Island when he thinks he’s killed his older brother.

• “Children in the Wind” (Kaze no naka no kodomo) Japan, 1937. D. Hiroshi Shimizu. 88 mins. The idyllic village life of a Japanese boy falls apart when his father is falsely imprisoned.

• “The Unseen” (NespatÅené). Czech Republic, 1997. D. Miroslav Janek. 53 mins. Documentary about Czech blind kids with remarkable talents, including taking photos.

 

When I Was Young By Mary Fitzgerald Book Review

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When I Was Young By Mary Fitzgerald Book ReviewWhen I Was Young quickly becomes gripping. It is hard to put the book down as you just want to know what is going to happen next. It is not immediately obvious and you wonder what secrets this family has. The characters draw you in with their mysteriousness and you wonder what it would be like to live in a post-world war world. With all of the scars and memories; the trauma and loss. Secrets can be toxic and so can lies. Nowhere it this most clear than in 1950s postwar France.

Eleanor is only 16 when she goes to the Loire Valley on a French Exchange. But her maturity and intelligence is beyond her years. Her arrival in France is only welcome by some of the family she is to stay with, and initially she cannot help feeling that it is her fault. At home her mother works the farm as her father sustained serious mental and physical injuries whilst he was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp. Throughout the story Eleanor becomes even stronger, she becomes a women.

Eleanor falls in love in France, but love is always complicated. I do not want to give away too much of what happens- always hard in a book review- but the book is wonderful at capturing emotion and the fact that home can be anywhere, and when you find it, that’s it.

This is a wonderful book that you will want to read all the way through to the end without stopping. Highly enjoyable.

Published by Arrow and out on the 27th March 2013. Also available as an eBook.

 

On the backcover:

‘When I was young the war started. When I was young my father was a soldier. When I was young I moved to the country. When I was young I went to France and fell in love’

 

1950

Eleanor is sixteen when she goes to the Loire Valley on a French Exchange. But the beauty of her surroundings are at odds with the family who live there. It is a family torn apart by the memories of the German occupation, and buckling under the burden of the dark secrets they keep.

 

Etienne, the dark and brooding owner is friendly, but his wife Mathilde’s malicious behaviour overshadows Eleanor’s days.

 

As the secrets reveal themselves one by one, Eleanor begins to understand the terrible legacy of war, and when death comes to the vineyard, she learns the redemptive power of love.

When I Was Young