online

By
Emily Hill

PUBLISHED:

17:00 EST, 1 December 2012

|

UPDATED:

22:24 EST, 1 December 2012

John Whaite whips off his jumper, rolls up his shirt sleeves and prepares to work his magic. We are in the well-appointed kitchen of a London townhouse so he can share his four favourite Christmas recipes with Mail on Sunday readers.

Ingredients and equipment have been laid out. Pristine utensils are at hand. The state-of-the-art oven  is warming. But, then… ‘Hmm, how am I going to get by without baking parchment?’ John wonders, turning to me.

Oh no! It was my job to bring everything on John’s shopping list and I have – idiotically – forgotten the baking parchment.

Worth the Whaite: Bake Off winner John with our own self-confessed hopeless cook Emily Hill after a long day in the kitchen

But this is the winner of BBC2’s The Great British Bake Off. The contestant who used architectural plans to whip up a miniature version of the Roman Colosseum from dark treacle gingerbread.

The baker who cracked 15 eggs into a show-stopping ‘Heaven and Hell’ cake, before finessing its chocolate coating with a hairdryer and applying gold leaf with the delicate touch of an artist.

This is not a man to be easily discombobulated.

‘Don’t worry,’ he grins. ‘I can do without.’

He gets to work on his first creation, Christmassy Strudels, while we chat.

Despite daydreaming throughout the show about a move to Paris to learn more about French patisserie, John has now decided to stay in England.

‘I don’t want to run away to Paris because I don’t want to leave my partner Paul at home,’ he says. ‘Relationships have to come first.’

Instead, in January, he starts studying patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu in London. ‘The course is only 15 hours a week, so I will be able to commute from Manchester at first. It’s a fantastic place – I am so excited.’

Meanwhile, the 23-year-old is looking
forward to spending Christmas at the family farm in Wigan, with Paul, a
27-year-old graphic designer. ‘Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas
without family. Many people go travelling at this time of year but I’ve
got to be at home. I couldn’t be anywhere else,’ he says. He will, of
course, be baking non-stop.

‘I try not to bake the same thing more than twice but at the start of the festive season my mum’s friends all put in orders for my sticky toffee pudding.

This year I have to make ten and I’ve had lots more requests – for birthday cakes and so on. But that’s not really my thing – I just want to do my patisserie.

‘Actually, what I am most looking forward to is creeping downstairs, in the dead of night, with Paul, to raid the fridge and make a giant Christmas sandwich with the leftovers of my mum’s special ham.’

As John sets to with the electric whisk, I ask him about the accident on the show when, mid-strudel, he caught a finger in the blades of the mixer. He was carried off set, bleeding and feeling faint.

‘Fingergate,’ John sighs. He shows me his finger. ‘It’s still intact – there’s a tiny scar on the end. It wasn’t that bad.

‘Television makes things look much worse. When you’re making dough you have to be tactile, so I felt it while it was in the food processor. But I forgot the blade was there and just squeezed.

‘I tried to carry on, but we’re a nation mad about health and safety now so I had to get it checked out. Also, it wasn’t very hygienic to make strudel with a bloody finger.’

He douses today’s strudel filling with whisky and drizzles melted butter expertly over his filo pastry as conversation turns to other cooks. John loves Fanny Cradock, but saves his real praise for Nigella Lawson.

John Whaite’s winning ‘Heaven and Hell’ cake from the final episode of Great British Bake Off on BBC2. He ended up using a hairdryer to dry its chocolate coating perfectly

‘I think I’d turn straight for Nigella,’
he confides – although he does mention Paul again in the very next
breath. ‘I think I must have baked every day of my life. And I do all
the cooking at home. Paul can’t even heat up a can of beans.’

Strudels in the oven, John limbers up for his second creation. ‘When it comes to Christmas, I am a total traditionalist,’ he announces, poised to make a two-tone, candy-cane Swiss roll, oozing with raspberries.

He whips up the mixture, adds the colouring and grimaces, saying it tastes of paprika. No one is eating this, he insists, somewhat dramatically.

Needless to say, when it emerges from the oven later it smells like all our Christmases have come at once. And tastes like it, too.

Pure vanilla bean paste is one of John’s top ingredients. He uses it instead of vanilla extract.

John grew up on a farm near Wigan with
his elder sisters, Jane and Victoria, and his mother, Linda. ‘I got into
baking when my parents divorced,’ he says.

‘It began when I was five –
just me, Mum and my sisters in the kitchen. Since then it’s become
inherently comforting. I used to have the washing-up  job but I’ve
worked my way up the kitchen hierarchy at home.’

At school, John’s natural intelligence
took him to the top of his class, and he won a place at Oxford
University to read Modern and Medieval Languages.

But missing home – and
Paul – he left Oxford for Manchester University, switching to study
law. He was sitting his finals at the same time as filming The Great
British Bake Off.

In October, seven million viewers tuned in to see him triumph in the show’s first all-male final in which John went cake-to-cake with the favourite, 21-year-old Scottish medical student James Morton, and 63-year-old  baking veteran Brendan Lynch.

Judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood crowned him winner and, shortly after filming finished, he graduated with a first.

John’s mother, who had been opposed to him pursuing a career in baking, finally accepted that it wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘I was all set to start a job in banking and I was losing sleep because I didn’t want to do it,’ says John.

‘I was going to be a commercial banker in an asset finance division. It was a fantastic job, I was very lucky but it wasn’t where my heart was – and you have to follow your heart.’

John kept his win a secret and he and his friends tuned in to the show each week to watch. ‘It was awful watching it because you had to start again, emotionally, from day one.

‘You watch yourself put salt in a load of rum babas and make an underproved stollen.’

There have been no such disasters in our little bake off, which is completed with John’s pristine mince pies. He dusts them with icing sugar, one-handed.

What is the best advice he could give any future contestants of The Great British Bake Off? ‘A great tip – that James developed and I had to steal – was to swear like a sailor if things went wrong, because then they couldn’t put it on TV,’ he says. ‘I wish I’d learned that sooner.’

And with that, his work here is done and he is off into the night. Looks as if I’m doing the washing-up.

Frangipane? Check. Guinness? Check. Ready, steady — bake!

My idea of cooking is boiling tortellini in a saucepan and putting a fishcake in the oven, so John has his work cut out. Still, he seems convinced he can make a baker of me?…

Candy cane swiss roll – with raspberries and cream

John recommends spiking the Swiss roll’s cream with a seasonal shot of Framboise liqueur

John beats eggs, sugar and vanilla bean paste in a large bowl. He whisks the mixture vigorously until it triples in volume.

Then he folds in flour. He divides the mixture in half and colours one batch red, leaving the other white.

He decants each of these mixtures into separate piping bags.

John snips off the end of each bag with a pair  of scissors and begins expertly drawing red and white lines, alternately, down the baking tray.

He makes piping the mixture look easy. 

It isn’t. My Swiss roll doesn’t have stripes, it has wiggles.

And don’t even get me started on the next step…

John whips up a Swiss roll filling, using raspberries and double cream.

His perfect baked stripes are removed from the oven.

When cool, he slathers the raspberry filling  on top and carefully  rolls up his perfect rectangle of thin, striped cake to make a scrumptious Swiss roll.

He neatens up the ends – et voila! I, however,  am confronted with a collapsed roll of raspberry mush.

John says you can always spike the cream with a seasonal shot of Framboise liqueur. I console myself with a swig.

• Emily’s difficulty rating: 9/10

The mincemeat and fangipane tartlets are at least three times the size of your average mince pie

Mincemeat and frangipane tartlets

The brilliant thing about John’s mince pies is they are at least three times the size of your average mince pie. And they come with an orange-infused frangipane topping. Plus, he serves them with a dollop of brandy butter.

John follows an old French recipe for his pastry. I copy him, placing sugar and egg in a mixing bowl and whisking until aerated. 

The flour is tipped in – resembling sandy breadcrumbs. Then the butter is added. The mixture clumps together and kneads easily into a smooth ball. After dusting down the rolling pin, it all rolls out smoothly and can be placed in the heart-shaped tartlet tins.

Unfortunately, I forgot the baking beans. John needs to blind-bake the pastry, so improvises with screwed-up bits of greaseproof paper.

The next step is to spread mincemeat across each baked pastry case, and then pipe on the frangipane.

Again, John makes piping look easy but when our tartlets are baked until brown and puffy you can’t really tell the difference. To make sure, I douse mine with even more icing sugar. It wouldn’t fool Paul Hollywood.

• Emily’s difficulty rating: 4/10

John’s Christmassy strudels, featuring sweet apples, cranberries, walnuts, grated marzipan and a liberal dose of whisky

Christmassy Strudels – with sweet apples, cranberries, walnuts and grated marzipan  

John dices up eight apples into 1cm cubes and mixes them up with cranberries, walnuts and caster sugar. He then adds a liberal dose of whisky to  his mixture – which makes it distractingly delicious. John promises that if I concentrate I can have the leftovers afterwards, so we get to work grating marzipan.

Luckily, this recipe doesn’t require making Mary Berry-worthy pastry. You use  frozen filo pastry from the supermarket. At least I have remembered to defrost said pastry – John is grateful for such small mercies. 

He unrolls the sheets on to the worktop, carefully. He paints each sheet with melted butter and plonks a helping of strudel innards on. He then tucks the whole thing up into a fat sausage shape. I follow his example and soon get the hang of it.

John’s strudels may look much more elegant than mine – but with a liberal sprinkling of icing sugar on the finished product, no one will be able to taste the difference.

• Emily’s difficulty rating: 3/10

John admits that everyone does not have enough time to bake a cake like the one pictured – so his own recipe can be made just a few days before Christmas

Last-minute Christmas Cake – with sweetened cranberries, Guinness and dates

With John’s encouraging words ringing in my ears,  I decided to bake the Christmas cake at home. It is billed as a last-minute cake but it takes several hours to make, and John didn’t have the time to take me through it on our Great Christmas Bake Off.

On perusing the recipe, I see John admits that ‘some of us do not have the time to make a cake until a few days before the big day’. I last made a cake in the Nineties. Still, there is Guinness in it, so it must  be good. I get cracking  and the cake does not disappoint. You simply take cranberries, prunes, cherries, currants and dates and put them in a large saucepan with the Guinness.

It smells delicious, simmering away on the stove for five minutes.

Then you add brandy, sugar, butter, eggs, flour, walnuts and all manner of festive ingredients.

Then you bake it. Success at last.

• Emily’s difficulty rating: 1/10

• 
  The final argument: Kansas City football star Jovan Belcher…

• 
  Has John McAfee finally been captured? Millionaire software…

• 
  Ultra high-definition 84-inch TV coming to the U.S. with a…

• 
  NASA warns Mayan apocalypse stories pose threat to…

• 
  Now that’s customer service! Lego tracks down rare train set…

• 
  Tamara’s Versailles: A 50-seat cinema, a gilded ballroom and…

• 
  How your facelift will look in five years: Leading surgeon…

• 
  Crocodile eats boy, 12, as he swims with friends in…

• 
  One man and his tiger: Indonesian man forms unbreakable bond…

• 
  From Seaside Heights to the backwoods of Appalachia: MTV…

• 
  ‘My evil boyfriend raped me in my sleep for TWO YEARS’:…

• 
  Where have Warren Jeffs’ followers gone? Compound that was…

Share this article:

The comments below have not been moderated.

• 
  
  Newest
• 
  
  Oldest
• 
  
  Best rated
• 
  
  Worst rated

Without the recipes, this article is entirely useless.
I want back the 10 minutes I spent looking for them.

–

cpad
,

Vancouver,
02/12/2012 22:05

Report abuse

im a chocolatier

we always have a hair dryer to aid us

its nothing unusual!

hardly radical!

–

Tiny_lou
,

Wiltshire, Brunei,
02/12/2012 18:08

Report abuse

So, we need eggs, vanilla paste, Guiness and baking beans? This will result in great food, yes? Excellent. In other words – where are the recipes as stated?

–

YorkshireGirl
,

Leeds, United Kingdom,
02/12/2012 18:05

Report abuse

Met him at the NEC Good Food Show yesterday. He was really friendly.

–

JJ
,

Manchester, United Kingdom,
02/12/2012 17:26

Report abuse

How is he sharing his favourite recipes when there are no recipes here? What his is sharing is his favourite things to bake with a few directions. Recipes require ingredients, quantities, directions, cooking temp and time!!

–

Sarah
,

Toronto, Canada,
02/12/2012 14:20

Report abuse

@Dan_at_the_lane… … What’s really annoying is that someone has obviously complained about Dan’s comment and had it removed and all we can now read is the by play between commenters without knowing what all the fuss was about!!!

–

Chris
,

Herts, United Kingdom,
02/12/2012 12:54

Report abuse

Really want to make the cake,but where o where are the ingredients/recipe/method to be found???????????? V V annoyed!!!!!!!!!!

–

Kerrie Mcgreal
,

chichester, United Kingdom,
02/12/2012 12:43

Report abuse

@Dan_at_the_lane… Someone’s in a bad mood today. Chill out before you keel over eh! Of course I’m now going to say that I agree wholeheartedly with Coastal Girl and actually this is by far the best TV programme the beeb have made in years. Pure unadulterated relaxing (and often tasty) TV viewing. Love it!

–

lubilou64
,

Westcliff on Sea,
02/12/2012 12:30

Report abuse

So where are the recipes – don’t say he is going to share them if you don’t put them in the article….. a waste of time reading it if they are not there. No doubt we would have to buy his book if we wanted them! I really fancy making the christmas cake as it sounds different to normal recipes

–

Bunny
,

Halifax, United Kingdom,
02/12/2012 11:53

Report abuse

Love the interview – but where are the recipes? would quite like to have given some of this a go, but with baking you need definate weights and methods. Sloppy DM.

–

Cin
,

Enniskillen, United Kingdom,
02/12/2012 11:44

Report abuse

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

A drug dealer has been jailed after a jury agreed he was using a kitchen for things other than emulating 1950s cook Fanny Cradock.

Roger McDonald operated from a one-bedroom flat in Eldon Road, Reading.

However, the 50-year-old said none of the items gathered by police during a search of the property – crack cocaine, counterfeit notes and drug dealing paraphenalia – belonged to him.

During his trial at Reading Crown Court, the jury heard police forced entry to the basement flat to carry out a search warrant on the morning of November 16, 2010 and McDonald arrived in a car with his girlfriend shortly after.

Charles Ward-Jackson, prosecuting, said McDonald was seen handing some cash to the woman when he saw the police, but it was seized by officers. They found items associated with drug dealing in the kitchen, including several rolls of cling film.

Mr Ward-Jackson said: “Although there was a kitchen in the flat there was very little evidence of cooking. This defendant is no Fanny Cradock in the kitchen.”

More cling film was found in the bedroom along with nearly 13.6g of crack cocaine valued at between £800 and £1,300, and cannabis valued at about £40.

Another 10g of cocaine, valued at between £400 and £500, was discovered in the lounge, the court heard.

Officers found a stack of fake £20 notes in a hollowed-out Yellow Pages, £1,000, a stolen laptop, 80g of phenacetin used to cut cocaine, scales with traces of cocaine on the surface and a mixing bowl.

A mobile phone seized from the flat by police included recent text messages which appeared to be from addicts wanting to meet up to buy drugs.

McDonald was arrested and taken to Loddon Valley Police Station where he made no comment in interview, but prepared a written statement which said: “I’m not dealing any drugs. I have nothing in my flat which I use for preparing drugs.”

He was released on bail and interviewed by police about a year later when he again made no comment in interview, but made another prepared statement saying he had no knowledge of the counterfeit notes and the laptop belonged to a friend.

McDonald, of Charnwood Court, Basingstoke Road, Whitley, denied two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply, possession of counterfeit money and proceeds of drug dealing, including cash and a stolen laptop. He admitted possession of cannabis.

However, on Monday the jury convicted him on all counts and he was jailed for three-and-a-half years.

I wrote earlier this year that The Hour, the BBC’s period drama about the producers, reporters, and anchor on a show of the same title trying to break through the BBC’s strictures and the stifling social environment of the late 1950s, was the show that Aaron Sorkin wanted his HBO drama The Newsroom to be. It was attuned to the actual rhythms and difficulties of reporting, the stories are legitimately revealing rather than pontificating, and the characters face genuine obstacles to getting those stories on the air. And in the second season of the show, which began its run on BBC America last night, I think that’s become even more true, particularly in the way that The Hour is handling the rise of a phenomenon that The Newsroom tried to critique decades later: the rise of commercial television programming aimed at women.

I talked to Abi Morgan, The Hour‘s creator, about the show’s approach to gender in general, and about the kind of programming aimed at women like Marnie (Oona Chaplin), the upper-class wife of The Hour anchor Hector (Dominic West), who begins exploring a career as the host of a cooking show. She explained:

I think if you look at the women, the on-screen talent at that time, on the whole they were either singing along to a puppet, or they were presenting the kind of soft magazine programs that were just starting to come up through the ’50s. I liked the idea of Marnie almost becoming quite literally this professional housewife. She’s this Fanny Cradock-esque character. It also felt like a kind of brilliant, brittle metaphor for this kind of life Marnie finds herself encased in. You’ll see that marriage really is tested through the course of the series….

The mainstay of commercials of that time was the great British housewife. Marnie is very much the consumer of her time. On the wider level, the show is about the birth of capitalism in the ’50s and into the ’60s. The warmongers were finding a way of making money out of nuclear paranoia, [and there was a] global desire to be part of the arms and space race. This parallels what’s going on with Marnie. She’s someone who aspires to a bigger life. When you write a drama set in this era, you have a whole period where if your characters have any gumption or charisma, they have to break away from this suppressive ’50s world.

Where The Newsroom could be viciously dismissive of mass culture aimed at women—Will McAvoy ran himself into trouble in part by insulting a gossip columnist for covering the Real Housewives, and declaring that he’d fix another woman whose primary flaw included consuming that kind of show—The Hour doesn’t try to make judgements about whether it’s bad or not that programming aimed by women exists. Instead, it tries to reckon with what it means that this kind of programming speaks powerfully to the ennui of post-war women like Marnie, who aren’t working, and how their power as consumers affects the entire media landscape. When Bel debates whether or not to run a segment about Christian Dior, she’s also trying to figure out where fashion fits in the hierarchy of news and human interest.

And the show never presents Marnie as stupid for being entranced by a commercial, or seeking out a career using the skills that she has, even if they’re feminine ones. Of course she’s bored! She was bred for a specific role, to be a good wife to a man like Hector, who was expected to play a corresponding part, but instead cheats on her, pursues entertainment in nightclubs where she is not invited, and treats her as if she couldn’t possibly be interested in his career. Marnie is an intelligent, capable woman, but no one asks anything of her, not even that she be available for sex and housekeeping. Even if she’s only valuable to television as a consumer, at least it’s a form of being valued.

The thing that Will McAvoy, and that by extension The Newsroom, never seemed to get, is that consuming frivolous things doesn’t make you a frivolous person. Everyone I know who watches Real Housewives does so because they recognize the show as a social critique folded into a trainwreck like a pill into applesauce. It’s possible to even consume things that you know are bad for you, or that have no redeeming social value whatsoever, to recognize them as such, and to enjoy them anyway. The question is not whether or not someone is a good person for watching certain things. It’s what need they speak to, what itch they scratch.

Close

Want to see more great content like this?

Like ThinkProgress on Facebook

Just click the button below:

Don’t show this to me again

 Previous in TP Alyssa

Next in TP Alyssa  

The Mt Aspiring climbing season is off to a strong start, with guiding companies reporting good mountain snow conditions and client bookings, particularly from the Australian market.

Wanaka-based guiding companies Adventure Consultants and Aspiring Guides are completely booked out this month and next for climbing courses and ascents of Mt Aspiring, Mt Cook and other New Zealand peaks.

“I think people recognise that that’s the time of year when the snow conditions in the mountains are at their best,” Adventure Consultants owner Guy Cotter said.

The company had already turned away “around $100,000 worth of business” from international clients in November-December because there were not enough fully qualified guides in New Zealand to meet the demand and working with Immigration New Zealand to bring in foreign guides had been “problematical”, Mr Cotter said.

Mt Aspiring has been particularly popular with climbers – predominantly Australians – in the past few weeks. Mr Cotter was “amongst the crowd” on a day about a fortnight ago when he understood 22 climbers had reached the summit of Mt Aspiring, the highest number he had personally experienced there at any one time.

“It was one of the little spikes you get,” he said.

“I guess it just reflects the start of the season and a good weather window.”

Despite a dry winter, frequent spring snowfalls had been filling up the glaciers, providing good mountain access. The snow conditions this year were similar to 20 years ago, when the mountains were accessible for the entire summer.

However, the situation could change very quickly if there was hot, dry weather in the coming weeks, Mr Cotter said.

Aspiring Guides director Andy Oxley said the company’s pre-Christmas bookings were at maximum capacity and about on a par with the last couple of years.

Department of Conservation community relations manager Annette Grieve said this month’s occupancy of Colin Todd Hut – at the base of Mt Aspiring’s north west Ridge – was about 160 people, which was also similar to recent years.

– Otago Daily Times

By Lucy Ibbotson

Last season, producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai), reporter Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw), and anchor Hector Madden (Dominic West) battled government officials to report on British involvement in the Suez Crisis. This time, about a year after that first season, they’re investigating the rise of a racist, working class movement that bears more than a passing resemblance to the English Defence League, a task that’s complicated by the fact that Hector, now a fixture of the London nightclub scene, has been accused of assaulting a young woman, Freddie’s come back from sabbatical in America married, and Bel is considering the advances of a rival program—and its producer.

THE Edgar Evans Statue Appeal Fund has been officially launched in his home city.

The fearless explorer, who perished on the frozen wastes of the Antarctic alongside Captain Scott in 1912 after weeks of battling injury, illness and sub-zero temperatures never shied away from challenges, and neither does his grandson.

1. ?

John Evans, is leading the race to raise £90,000 for the tribute to his Rhossili-born grandfather, which he aims to win in time to see the statue erected on the green outside Swansea Museum within a year.

The fund also hopes to establish an Edgar Evans education programme for local schools. Mr Evans said “A statue of Edgar Evans is long overdue, we all know that. If we work together I am confident that our generation will be the one which properly commemorates Petty officer Edgar Evans for Wales, with a monument that is literally worthy of his stature.

“Let us not forget that this son of Gower was one of the first men in history to reach the South Pole, a feat akin to landing on the moon today.

“He lived a hero and he died a hero. It is time to bring Edgar Evans back home to Swansea in the form of a substantial national monument.”

So far the campaign has won the backing of Swansea Council and the British Antarctic Heritage Trust which has donated £10,000 towards the cost.

Renowned Welsh sculptor Roger Andrews, who is responsible for the statues to Sir Tasker Watkins, outside the Millennium Stadium, and Cardiff City’s 1927 FA Cup winning skipper Fred Keenor, has already produced a scale model.

He said: “Edgar Evans is a forgotten Welsh hero. I tried to combine the accuracy of detail of his clothes with his face, looks and the character of the man.

“I want people to see a very brave, determined man, with steel in his eyes and at the same time, humour.”

To donate to the fund please send cheques, made payable to PO Edgar Evans Statue Appeal, to Swansea Building Society, 11-12 Cradock Street, Swansea SA1 3EW.

SCHOOL SPORT: Brilliant Burford in district cup victory

6:21pm Wednesday 21st November 2012 in Sport

Burford School won the West Oxfordshire Under 15 Cup with a 36-10 victory over Chipping Norton at Witney.

But they were denied a double when their under 14 side were beaten 21-19 by Marlborough School in their final.

There was little between the sides at half-time of the under 15 event, Burford holding a 12-10 advantage at the break.

But a superb second-half display saw them run out convincing winners.

Skipper Oli Toner led the way with a brace of tries, with Tom Harvey, Tom Renwick, Matthew Cradock and Reiss Howard also going over.

Howard added three conversions.

So I assembled two sets of identical ingredients – seabass fillets, best end of lamb, ceps, sprouting broccoli, leeks, cauliflower, butternut squash and potatoes – and asked Tracey and John to create a dish each using as many or as few of the ingredients as they wanted.

The location for the cook-off was The Library, my private demonstration kitchen at Tramshed, which has two cookers, two ovens and all the kitchen kit you could wish for. John and Tracey also had to hand store-cupboard ingredients and all the basics.

Tracey went for the lamb, assembling a colourful, varied set of ingredients which looked promising, asking for lots of extra ingredients and herbs, which only made John appear more nervous.

He eventually settled for fish, potatoes and broccoli, adding chorizo for interest, colour and texture in the same sort of way that you would use bacon with fish – a simple and delicious idea. They prepared very different dishes; read on to discover how they fared, as well as my verdict on their final creations.

Tracey cooks: Herb-crusted lamb, spiced lentils, roasted root vegetable quinoa and gremolata

Competitive? Of course John and I aren’t competitive. We’re colleagues. Compadres. Friends. So when our editor suggested that we go head-to-head in a cook-off, a Hix-judged spin on the feared Masterchef invention test, my first thought was, “That sounds like fun”. My second thought was: “How can I really freak John out and make sure I win this thing?” I immediately requested a sous-vide bath, a tatami mat and some liquid nitrogen, just to get him sweating.

On the day, of course, no extra equipment was needed to work us both into a state of high anxiety. What’s the collective noun for a brace of restaurant critics in a flop-sweat of reputational panic? That was John and me, reporting for duty in the gleaming show kitchen above the Tramshed. It wasn’t so much each other’s judgement we feared; it was that of Mark Hix, who is an actual chef, and would surely discover that his opinionated fellow columnists aren’t in any position to criticise the cooking of others.

With our game faces on – ie, please Mark, don’t make us cook game – we squared up over the mystery ingredients. My immediate reaction: phew. No tiny birds to pluck, or whole fish to gut. The rack of lamb looked good. The basket of wild mushrooms looked frightening. We both made a bid for the purple sprouting broccoli. “Hmm, I might do that with some drizzled sweet tahini,” I announced, just to mess with John’s head. “Oh God…” he groaned. Mark chipped in with, “Which one of you wants to use the steam oven?” “Oh God,” we both groaned.

Soon we were blindly grabbing things out of the basket like contestants on Supermarket Sweep. John went for fish. I went for lamb, just to be different, and because I couldn’t think of a way of making seabass exciting. In a version of the classic movie tooling-up sequence, we prepared our stations. Knives were chosen, sauté pans weighed up, aprons tied. Then, eyes narrowed across the range, we faced off.

Ignoring the golden rule of dinner party cooking – never try anything you haven’t made before – I decided to roast the lamb with a herb crust. Fresh breadcrumbs were located in Mark’s larder (grate your own breadcrumbs? Not in this dream kitchen) and mixed with chopped thyme and lemon zest. Now, how to make them stick to the meat? Mark immediately sprang forward with a vat of mysterious dark jelly, produced from the dark corner where he keeps the special stuff. “Grape must mustard,” he explained. I slathered it on. What is it? Who cares? As long as he likes it, and he’s judging this thing, I’ll use it.

With the lamb in a hot oven I started on my vegetables. Butternut squash, cubed and rubbed with olive oil, salt and cumin seeds, went in to a roasting pan with shallots and whole cloves of garlic. I started sautéing onions with cumin and coriander for the spiced lentils. A request for dried chilli got Mark truffling excitably around in his ‘Asian drawer’ and producing five different varieties. Thankfully he didn’t seem to be taking his judging duties too seriously, supplying a whole chorizo sausage from his freezer for John, who left it sitting between us to defrost in a bowl of warm water, winking at me like a long, pink challenge.

So helpful and unjudgemental was Mark, that at one point I found myself grandiosely giving HIM hints about the best way to cook quinoa – it’s important to toast it in a dry pan before adding boiling water, just to bring out the nuttiness… In the TV show, this would be the bit where I burnt my hand and got taken away in an ambulance, sobbing.

I was aware, as I chopped and stirred, that John’s state of mind couldn’t be characterised as ‘quietly confident’. Oscillating between low moans of despair and increasingly desperate calls for a steamer, he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself. His ultra-cautious approach to pan-frying his fish eventually provoked Mark to intervene. “What are you doing there? It looks like you’re warming some fish in a pan – very slowly.”

Otherwise, our judge largely maintained a polite silence about our efforts, although at one point, surveying the chaos of pans, knives and fingernail shavings scattered about my station, he suddenly piped up, “Will you say in the article that we offer cookery classes here?”.

Ninety minutes after we started, we were ready for service. All the mistakes I’ve regularly criticised others for making, I had blithely made myself. f I’d wildly over-seasoned, on the grounds that chefs have hardly any tastebuds left. I’d crowded too many ideas on to my plate and drizzled the whole thing with a powerful gremolata of garlic, lemon zest and thyme. And I had undercooked the lamb. How do you like it? I asked Mark. “Just a little bit pink,” he replied. I decided to serve him the two marginally less bloody end cutlets, which couldn’t be arranged symmetrically on top of the vegetables. Oh well, drizzle, drizzle.

Meanwhile, John was calling for a piping-bag to pimp his mash. “Don’t overbeat,” I murmured, in a last-ditch attempt to psych him out. The plating-up felt genuinely tense; we needed to coordinate our dishes so they were both ready for their close-up. John called urgently for white wine. I turned, expecting to see him deglazing a pan, but he was pouring himself a large glass.

The finished dishes looked like the first and last plates in an encyclopaedia of modern cooking. John’s oozed sophisticated Galloping Gourmet smoothery. (“Very Seventies! Very vintage!” cooed our editor encouragingly.) Mine looked colourful, but… busy. “Do you want to replate that?” ventured Mark. “It looks like you’ve dropped it.”

He tried John’s first. A mouthful of fish, a few molecules of potato. “Delicious!” he said guardedly. Then he turned to mine. A tiny sliver of lamb, a few grains of quinoa. “Delicious!” Come on Mark, you have to say more than that, chivvied our editor. At a push, he reluctantly admitted to preferring my boiled purple sprouting broccoli to John’s steamed version with cumin seeds, but that was it. Turns out Mark is much too nice to criticise anyone else’s cooking. So with some relief all round, we’ll go back to doing that, and leave the cooking to him.

Mark’s verdict on Tracey: This looked good in terms of texture and colour. Tracey has added variety by using store-cupboard ingredients such as lentils and quinoa along with spices like cinnamon and cumin – some good combinations going on here. The lamb is nicely pink and the gremolata adds a nice zing. Overall, very good – reminds me of Ottolenghi.

John cooks: Roasted fillet of seabass with chorizo, ceps, broccoli and piped mashed potatoes

Thank heavens for Doctor Johnson. He justifies the existence of the restaurant critic. “You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table,” he said. “It is not your trade to make tables.” And in your reviews you may tick off a chef for an inexpert crème brûlée, though you wouldn’t have a hope of brûlée-ing one yourself. So when Tracey MacLeod and I were offered a Masterchef challenge – to cook a dish from scratch, to a deadline, using ingredients supplied by Mark Hix – did we worry that our critical reputations were on the line?

Of course we did. What are you, nuts? The atmosphere in the upstairs kitchen at Hix’s Tramshed restaurant in trendy east London was raw with competitiveness, as we sorted through the ingredients: seabass, two racks (sorry, ‘best end’) of lamb, a huge cauliflower, onions, shallots, potatoes, butternut squash, two kinds of mushroom, parsley, cream, wilted purple sprouting broccoli, leeks and small bowls of chicken jus – which clearly wouldn’t harmonise with the fish or the lamb, so thanks for that, Mark…

Knowing Tracey’s a sophisticated cook (whereas my style suits the palates of small children and squaddies), I didn’t fancy a lamb roast-off. Too humiliating. OK, I said, why don’t you dof the lamb, and I’ll do the fish. Fish is easy-peasy, isn’t it? Melt butter with olive oil, cook on medium heat, skin-side down, for five minutes, flip it over, five minutes more, take off heat, poke to see if it’s done and bingo, Mark and I are off to the pub to discuss my future in his kitchen.

I looked over at my rival. Her brow was furrowed with concentration, as lamb recipes from the world’s cookbooks hurtled through her brain. “I’m going to need some extra things,” she said, like a surgeon surveying an inadequate table of forceps and scalpels. “Mark, can you find me some rosemarybreadcrumbslemonbutterlentilscinnamon…”

Bloody hell. While I was planning to dish up boring plain fish (and, er, mash) she was planning a 19-flavour extravaganza. I thought fast. What was a pungent spice that flavours vegetables?

“Got any cumin?” I asked Mark Hix.

“…oh yeah, and cumin too,” said Tracey.

This was so unfair. “Have you any chorizo?” I countered. Tracey was shocked. “You can’t just ask for another main ingredient,” she hissed. “You might as well say, ‘Got a roast chicken I can use?’.” But she was overruled, on the grounds that chopped chorizo was a flavour component rather than a central item.

We chopped and peeled, sliced and sluiced, opened cupboards, banged drawers, grabbed saucepans, wooden spoons and fish slices, bent to our work like jockeys. We lit the cooking hobs, trying to be first to fry chopped onions and look professional. We demanded more utensils, like cuisinal prima donnas.

My notes are covered in oil-spots, but they’re mainly about timing: 20 minutes for the potatoes, 10 for the fish, seven for ceps seething in butter, five for the broccoli to steam with a little cumin. The seabass looked gigantic – more like a basking shark – but Hix explained that you cram it in the pan by slicing through the skin and folding the tail over to rest on the upper section. Sweating from this physical manoeuvre, I looked at Tracey. Somehow, out of nowhere, she’d magicked a perfect herb crust on to the lamb rack and was serenely (even – could it be? – a touch smugly) sliding it into the oven.

I fried chopped shallots and chorizo, hauled them out and cooked the fish in the sexed-up oil. With a plain white fish like bass, your nerves are on alert: the heat should be high, but you must turn the fish over before it sears; you check the white side is done by prodding rather than slicing. You mustn’t take your eyes off it. It’s an emotional 10 minutes.

Hix prowled around, doing that eyes-widened-with-incredulity trick perfected by Michel Roux Jnr on Masterchef. He looked on as I added cream to my perfectly cooked mushrooms, didn’t agree with my decision to steam the broccoli, barely glanced at my perfect bass, and winced as I folded chopped shallots into the mash. Then I had a brainwave. “Have you,” I asked, “a piping bag?”

I was having a mental flashback to the seabass I ate in J Sheekey years ago. It arrived with piped mash arranged round the fish in scallop-y ridges. Hix showed me how to transfer the mash into the bag, attach a nozzle, and pipe away. But it didn’t come out in bursts of artfully ribbed loveliness; it came out like toothpaste. Twice or thrice I ran it all the way round the bass. When I stopped, it seemed an awfully white dish: actually it was the colour of putty. The creamed mushrooms added a coffee hue to the latte-coloured plateful, although the broccoli helped.

Tracey, meanwhile, had knocked up a gremolata (whatever that was), diced butternut squash and served it with cinnamon, carved her herb-crusted lamb and artfully arranged two teensy chops across each other, mid-plate, as smartly as though she commanded the pass at the Savoy every night. My fish actually tasted pretty good, I thought; so did the mushrooms; ditto the mash. But it was eclipsed by Tracey’s lamb – a sublime dish, with five vivid flavours flapping about the rough-textured meat like attendant fairies.

Clearly I’d spent too long worrying about the timings and not enough on adding flavour-value. I’ll know better next time. Whaddya mean there won’t be a next time? Mark? Mark?

Mark’s verdict on John: This all looks terribly retro and Fanny Cradock-ish. John has made good use of the piping bag to pipe his mash round the fish. The fish was delicious, really well cooked and he’s done very well to use the chorizo in the same way as you would bacon. It all goes well with the creamy mushrooms and steamed sprouting broccoli.

Two intrepid endurance reality TV stars are
making Ironman 70.3 Laguna Phuket the final leg of a global
adventure challenge that will be seen by millions of viewers
across North America and elsewhere around the world.

Simon Donato
and Paul “Turbo” Trebilcock will be filmed competing in Ironman
70.3 Laguna Phuket on 2 December as the last of eight challenges
for the 10 episode TV series Boundless, being produced by
Canadian TV production house HLP + Partners.

Toughened and fired-up by a gruelling
globetrotting odyssey that has seen them complete in some of the
world’s most extreme races, the two lifelong friends now aim to
win Ironman 70.3 Laguna Phuket against its elite international pro
field led by legendary two-time Ironman World Champion
Chris “Macca”
McCormack, current Ironman and Ironman 70.3 double World Champion Leanda Cave, and other top professional triathletes.

Simon and Turbo have already completed this
series of hair-raising challenges for the Boundless show:

Fire and Ice Ultra (Iceland): A 250km, seven-day
stage race from the north edge of the Vatnajökull Glacier
(Europe’s largest glacier) to the northern tip of Iceland – almost
to the Arctic Circle – essentially a marathon a day for 6.5 days.
Self-supported (meaning competitors must carry all their food and
gear except tents).

Molokai 2 Oahu Standup Paddleboard Championships
(Hawaii, USA): Thirty-two miles from Molokai Island to Oahu Island
by tandem paddling a stand-up board across 10-foot open ocean
waves.

Amazing Maasai Ultra (Laikapia Region, Kenya): A
75km day-long race through untamed terrain, villages, farming
communities and herds of wild elephants.

Hansa Fish River Marathon (Cradock, South
Africa): A two-day tandem kayak race through Class three and four
rapids, down rapid chutes and man-made weirs, 82km total.

Frog Hollow Bike Race (Virgin, Utah, USA): A
six-hour looping mountain bike race through massive canyons, along
challenging single and double tracks, and harrowing switchbacks.

Sahara Race (Egypt): A 250km stage race through
the Sahara Desert, ending at the Pyramids of Giza. A marathon a
day – including one day of a double marathon (80+ km) – in searing
midday sun and endless miles of sand. Self-supported – they must
carry all their food and gear, except tents).

And before arriving in Phuket, they’ll complete
in:

Ancient Khmer Path (Cambodia): A 230km stage
race through rural country north of Phnom Penh to Siem Reap,
staying in temples and monasteries along the way. Not
self-supported (they don’t need to carry all gear and food), but
still a huge challenge with searing humid temperatures, various
dangers and health concerns.

Series producer Steven Bray, who leads the
four-strong film and production team travelling with Simon and
Turbo, said, “Boundless is a documentary following two passionate
individuals, chasing their dreams around the world and pushing
their physical and mental limits. I can’t say where or what, but Simon and Turbo
have done very well overall, placing well and even winning some of
the races – and if not winning, at least finishing and overcoming
each unique challenge posed by the race. They’re very much looking forward to competing
in the Ironman 70.3 in Phuket. It’s the perfect setting for such an event to round off an amazing eight-race run. Simon and Turbo are fit, determined and
stubborn as hell – and they’re looking to win this one!”

Debbie Dionysius, Assistant Vice President of
Destination Marketing, Laguna Phuket, said: “Simon and Turbo are
certainly going to be two to watch in our Ironman 70.3 – after
what they’ve achieved so far, swimming 1.9km, cycling 90.1km and
running 21.1km should be a walk in the park for them! We’re looking forward to seeing them here and
very excited about the potential of Boundless as a fantastic
international showcase for our event, and also for Phuket and
Thailand.”

The Boundless series is initially scheduled for
screening on Canada’s Travel Escape channel in 2013, followed by
other leading worldwide TV broadcasters.

See other recent news regarding:
Airlines,
Airline Traffic,
Airports,
Awards,
Flights,
Codeshare,
FFP,
Inflight,
Lounges,
First Class,
Business Class,
MICE,
GDS,
Rewards,
Miles,
Hotels,
Apartments,
Promotions,
Spas,
Yoga,
Retreat,
New Hotels,
Traffic,
Visitor Arrivals,
Cruises,
Free Deals,

RevPAR,
Interviews,
Pictures,
Sports Tourism,
Videos,

Laguna Phuket,

Ironman,

Triathlon,

Marathon,

Phuket

MY ACCOUNT | SUBMIT JOB AD | SUBSCRIBE | LIST COMPANY | CREATE PROFILE | SUBMIT EVENT | CONTRIBUTE ARTICLE | MY CV | SUBMIT GALLERY | PRESS OFFICE SIGNUP | RECRUITER SIGNUP | CONTACT US | ABOUT US | SEND US NEWS | ADVERTISING RATES |

moc.ytinummoczib@selas | +27 (0)21 680 3500 | +27 (0)11 612 3003

ADSL Web hosting proudly provided by Afrihost. All rights reserved. © 2012. Bizcommunity.com, its sponsors, contributors and advertisers disclaim all liability for any loss, damage, injury or expense that might arise from the use of, or reliance upon, the services contained herein. Privacy policy, Terms of Use, PAIA.

Artist’s impression of the redeveloped Rosebank Mallclick to enlargeThe company said yesterday R65m was received at the beginning of September with the balance to be paid on transfer.

Hyprop CEO Pieter Prinsloo said Hyprop’s strategy was to invest in sizable shopping centres and the hotel did not fit in with the company’s long-term investment profile. “The sale will not have any material impact on Hyprop’s results for the year ending December,” Prinsloo said.

While the effective date of the transaction is the beginning of September, transfer will only take place once certain conditions have been met – including the opening of a sectional title register.

Hyprop’s focus is on the R920m redevelopment and extension of the Rosebank Mall, which marks the first step in the company’s largest development undertaking to date.

The redevelopment and extension of the mall has a lot of positives in the long term. The mall will almost double in size to 62,000m² of lettable area. It will trade during the construction period with new retail sections being phased in from as early as the second quarter of next year.

On completion of the project, the mall will boast 160 stores to dominate the retail landscape in the busy and increasingly growing Rosebank node.

The redevelopment will also connect to the new Southern Sun hotel, 54 on Bath Avenue, as well as create a north-south pedestrian walkway between the Standard Bank development on Baker Street and the busy taxi rank on Cradock Avenue, opposite Total.

By upgrading the Rosebank Mall, Hyprop plans to leverage its existing asset and create an integrated “live, work and play” environment.

The company’s property portfolio is improving, with 95% of the portfolio made up of high-quality retail properties. The balance consists of offices, which Hyprop is selling to focus on its core retail property portfolio.

Source: Business Day

Wine show entrepreneurs behind Veritas, Michelangelo and the Old Mutual Toasty Show will be rubbing their hands in glee with news of an innovation that will increase capacity at tastings and their revenues: tampons to refresh judges between glasses of wine.  As reported in the Guardian yesterday, the UK’s leading celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, at Ellerman House earlier this month, notes “if you drain the moisture in your mouth you experience richness, creaminess and sweetness more intensely … and there is really nothing much more absorbent than a tampon.”

At the recent Diners Club Winemaker of the Year tasting (above) held at the Grande Roche in Paarl, I was initially thrown by the palate cleansers supplied by the hotel – pepper flavoured water biscuits – which throws question marks at the Toasty Show Shiraz results, held at the same venue.

Diners’ judge Margaret Fry swears by a glass of milk and I find that olives are useful to counteract tannin build-up.  But the tampon trick from Heston clearly has merit.  Although the pompous palates favoured by some shows will likely need designer tampons as tasting in a bow-tie with a little string hanging out of your mouth would be just too ridiculous, even for Old Mutual.  Tasting tampons could even be branded by a sponsor like Diners Club in the case of blind tastings, by Tops at Spar if Orange River wines are in play or the Platter Guide in the case of sighted assessment.  Presumably red tampons for red and rosé wines and white for white wines.

Modest Heston assigns credit for the tampon brainwave to oral physiologist Don Prince.  ”Don is the equivalent of me in the physiology department: he’s brilliant but barking mad and although I think he surpassed himself this time, it was not uncharacteristic.”

As Heston notes: “if you have a spoonful of ice-cream then put a tampon on the tongue for a couple of minutes, when you eat the ice-cream again the taste will be richer.  It’s certainly not something I would do for culinary enjoyment purposes, but it’s an interesting way to explore the taste receptors in our mouth.”  If tampons can clean up after ice cream, imagine what they would do for a flight of young Pinotages.

As in so many things in the world of wine, the Portuguese are well ahead of the game.  Above is an art work made from tampons by Joana Vasconcelos, part of the collection of one of the largest investors in Portuguese wine, Joe Berardo. Veritas could whip out a few of these each year and use them as decorations for WOSA’s next green wine show.

 

Four Catholic Memorial School graduates have been named recipients of the school’s annual distinguished alumni awards. The alumni–Dennis Curran, Jack Cradock, Thomas Manning and Myles Dudley–were honored at a formal ceremony on November 8 at Boston’s Westin Copley Place Hotel.   

Named after the school motto “Vince in Bono Malum”– which translates to “Conquer evil by doing good”– the annual awards are bestowed in three categories: Distinguished Professional Achievement, Outstanding Service to Community and Outstanding Young Alumnus.

Curran and Manning received the award for Professional Achievement. Curran, General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Labor Litigation and Policy for the National Football League, was praised for being the “institutional memory” of the league in the past three decades. Manning, who served as deputy chancellor of Commonwealth Medicine, devoted 34 years to growing UMass-Medical School’s facilities and partnerships in making it a national leader in the medical field.

The school recognized 1961 graduate Jack Cradock with the Service to Community Award. As president and CEO of the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, Cradock has demonstrated a lifetime of commitment to serving the medical needs of the poor and disenfranchised.  

Myles Dudley, a 1998 graduate of the school, earned the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award. In the brief span of time since his graduation, Dudley rose to leadership positions at several financial firms in Boston before co-founding Pinnacle Private Wealth.

President Paul Sheff ’62 will recognize each award recipient at the November 8 dinner. “We are so proud of these individual alumni. They truly represent the best and brightest of our alumni and they are inspiring models for the next generation of CM graduates,” he said.

Pub landlords Jonathan and Leah Wainwright are the toast of the town after winning a national pub award.

The pair, licensees at the Cradock Arms in Knighton Road, Leicester, have won the award for Best Cellar Pub in the UK in The Publican’s Morning Advertiser’s Great British Pub Awards during their first year in charge.

1. ?

The pub qualified for the finals after securing the title of Best Cellar Pub in the Midlands and Wales region earlier in the year.

Jonathan, 49, said: “It was a proud moment and a great accomplishment to win a national award.

“We took over the Cradock Arms when it was nothing and, thanks to a great team, we’ve really turned things around.”

With many pubs closing down across the country, Jonathan said the Cradock Arms was “going the other way” thanks to its popular restaurant and refurbishment by Everards.

They were entered into the competition by Everards.

The couple received the award in Mayfair, London, beating seven other finalists.

PRETORIA NEWS

City of Tshwane spokesman Pieter de Necker holds a press conference on the paintings stolen from the Pretoria Art Museum. Picture: Phill Magakoe

Related Stories

• Experts worry stolen artworks may be destroyed
• Tshwane metro warned before art robbery – DA
• Pretoria Art Museum closed after robbery
• Robbery nets R15m artworks
• Art museum targeted by armed trio

Pretoria -A prominent Pretoria artist is suspected to be behind the brazen robbery in which three men made off with paintings worth R17.5 million from the Pretoria Art Museum.

The artist allegedly commissioned the men to steal the masterpieces for him, the Pretoria News has been told.

On Monday, Crime Linereceived a tip-off regarding the robbery. The head of Crime Line, Yusuf Abramjee, said the information had been passed on to police to follow up.

The Tshwane Metro Council revealed on Monday that the CCTV surveillance cameras at the museum were not working when the paintings were stolen.

Mayoral spokesman Pieter de Necker said at a media briefing in Pretoria that there was a technical problem with the CCTV cameras and they could not capture the robbery.

Three men entered the museum as regular art viewers before allegedly pulling out a weapon and taking out their shopping list to demand the masterpieces.

De Necker said the three men posed as art students and their lecturer and asked to view the specific paintings. “No one thought anything sinister about this as it happens a lot,” said De Necker.

The suspects tied up museum employee Daywood Khan before they took six paintings.

The men left one painting behind – Irma Stern’s Two Malay Musicians, said to have been the most expensive and valued at R12 million – when it could not fit into their vehicle.

The stolen paintings were: Irma Stern’s Fishing Boats (1931) valued at R9m, Gerard Sekoto’s Street Scene (R7m), Maggie Laubser’s Cat and Petunias (1936) valued at R1m, Hugo Naudé’s Hottentot Chief (R300 000) and Pierneef’s Eland and Bird (1961) valued at R45 000.

De Necker said the manner in which the men staged the robbery suggests they must have done their homework.

He refused to say if it was believed the incident was an inside job.

“At this stage we do not want to say or suspect an inside job. That is up to the police to prove. Every person is a suspect at this stage.”

De Necker said the robbery was a wake-up call for museums. This should be a sign that security should be beefed up and that anyone walking in could be a con man.

However, he was optimistic that the paintings would not be sold for public viewing at another museum as art lovers would recognise the works and report them to police.

“We are trying to get the message as far and wide as possible so that if people see the art they will report it to police,” he said.

The museum’s curator, Dirk Oegema, said the theft was a loss to the entire country, not just the city. The paintings were a national asset. Oegema said the museum would look at its security and try to find loopholes that needed to be plugged.

Annette Cradock, who was in the museum when the robbery took place, told the Pretoria News on Monday that she was with her husband viewing a photographic exhibition when she heard loud voices.

“I found it strange that people are shouting as art lovers are normally quiet. I then heard metal fall on the ground and saw people walking out with paintings. I thought maybe they are working there.”

Cradock said that as she turned, she found Khan tied with wire and they helped him. He tried to run outside to see if he could locate the men. “He came back and we tried to calm him down. He called police.

“It was a bit hair-raising because had we started at the photographic exhibitions, we would have been in the hall when the robbery took place.”

Pretoria News

PRETORIA NEWS

City of Tshwane spokesman Pieter de Necker holds a press conference on the paintings stolen from the Pretoria Art Museum. Picture: Phill Magakoe

Related Stories

• Experts worry stolen artworks may be destroyed
• Tshwane metro warned before art robbery – DA
• Pretoria Art Museum closed after robbery
• Robbery nets R15m artworks
• Art museum targeted by armed trio

Pretoria -A prominent Pretoria artist is suspected to be behind the brazen robbery in which three men made off with paintings worth R17.5 million from the Pretoria Art Museum.

The artist allegedly commissioned the men to steal the masterpieces for him, the Pretoria News has been told.

On Monday, Crime Linereceived a tip-off regarding the robbery. The head of Crime Line, Yusuf Abramjee, said the information had been passed on to police to follow up.

The Tshwane Metro Council revealed on Monday that the CCTV surveillance cameras at the museum were not working when the paintings were stolen.

Mayoral spokesman Pieter de Necker said at a media briefing in Pretoria that there was a technical problem with the CCTV cameras and they could not capture the robbery.

Three men entered the museum as regular art viewers before allegedly pulling out a weapon and taking out their shopping list to demand the masterpieces.

De Necker said the three men posed as art students and their lecturer and asked to view the specific paintings. “No one thought anything sinister about this as it happens a lot,” said De Necker.

The suspects tied up museum employee Daywood Khan before they took six paintings.

The men left one painting behind – Irma Stern’s Two Malay Musicians, said to have been the most expensive and valued at R12 million – when it could not fit into their vehicle.

The stolen paintings were: Irma Stern’s Fishing Boats (1931) valued at R9m, Gerard Sekoto’s Street Scene (R7m), Maggie Laubser’s Cat and Petunias (1936) valued at R1m, Hugo Naudé’s Hottentot Chief (R300 000) and Pierneef’s Eland and Bird (1961) valued at R45 000.

De Necker said the manner in which the men staged the robbery suggests they must have done their homework.

He refused to say if it was believed the incident was an inside job.

“At this stage we do not want to say or suspect an inside job. That is up to the police to prove. Every person is a suspect at this stage.”

De Necker said the robbery was a wake-up call for museums. This should be a sign that security should be beefed up and that anyone walking in could be a con man.

However, he was optimistic that the paintings would not be sold for public viewing at another museum as art lovers would recognise the works and report them to police.

“We are trying to get the message as far and wide as possible so that if people see the art they will report it to police,” he said.

The museum’s curator, Dirk Oegema, said the theft was a loss to the entire country, not just the city. The paintings were a national asset. Oegema said the museum would look at its security and try to find loopholes that needed to be plugged.

Annette Cradock, who was in the museum when the robbery took place, told the Pretoria News on Monday that she was with her husband viewing a photographic exhibition when she heard loud voices.

“I found it strange that people are shouting as art lovers are normally quiet. I then heard metal fall on the ground and saw people walking out with paintings. I thought maybe they are working there.”

Cradock said that as she turned, she found Khan tied with wire and they helped him. He tried to run outside to see if he could locate the men. “He came back and we tried to calm him down. He called police.

“It was a bit hair-raising because had we started at the photographic exhibitions, we would have been in the hall when the robbery took place.”

Pretoria News

While Americans exercise their right to vote today, South Africans are quietly commemorating a step toward their own democratic existence.

On November 6, 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution condemning South Africa’s racist apartheid policies, calling for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation. Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress, was jailed the following year.

It would take another thirty two years before South Africa arrived at a wholly democratic state when a multiracial, multiparty transitional government was approved in 1993 and the country held its first democratic elections in 1994, appointing Nelson Mandela as President.

Check out a selection of images from the exhibition “Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life” on view at the International Center of Photography in New York City through January 6, 2013.

Loading Slideshow

• Part of the crowd near the Drill Hall on the opening day of the Treason Trial, December 19, 1956.

  Times Media Collection, Museum Africa, Johannesburg.

• South Africa goes on trial. Police and crowd outside court. The whole world was watching when the three major sabotage trials started in Pretoria, Cape Town and Maritzburg. Outside the palace of Justice during the Rivonia Trial, 1963.

  © Baileys Archives.

• The 29 ANC Women’s League women are being arrested by the police for demonstrating against the permit laws, which prohibited them from entering townships without a permit, and were later kept in Boksburg Prison for 14 days. 26th August 1952.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• South Africa goes on trial. Police outside the court. The whole world was watching when the three major sabotage trials started in Pretoria, Cape Town and Maritzburg. Outside the palace of Justice during the Rivonia Trial, 1963.

  © Baileys Archives.

• SACP banner displayed at the funeral of the Cradock 4 (Matthew Goniwe, Ford Calata, Sparrow Mkonto, Sicelo Mhlauli) at Lingelihle Township,Cradock, Eastern Cape., July 20, 1985.

• Harriet Gavshon in Jan Smuts Ave., Johannesburg. Part of a Black Sash protest stand in which protesters had to stand alone, or be arrested as an illegal gathering, July 19, 1985.

• Sisulu released. South Africa, Soweto, 1989.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• Right Wing. South Africa, Pretoria, 1990.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• Mandela released. South Africa, Cape, Paarl, 1990.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• Right Wing. South Africa, Pretoria, 1991.

  Courtesy of the artist.

• The 94 election. South Africa, Soweto, 1994.

  Courtesy of the artist.

Related on HuffPost:

Winchester prepares for feast of festive fun

4:38pm Tuesday 6th November 2012 in Hampshire Chronicle

The Winchester Christmas Market traditionally opens with a lantern parade

CHRISTMAS is well and truly on its way to Winchester.

Festive celebrations officially begin next week on November 15 with the Christmas lights switch-on from 3pm-7pm.

Mayor of Winchester Frank Pearson will do the honours alongside the cast of this year’s Theatre Royal pantomime, Aladdin.

Entertainment comes from rock band The Hoosiers, who had chart success in 2007 with their number one album, The Trick to Life.

They are supported by Steve Cradock and Andy Bennett of Britpop-band Ocean Colour Scene and rising star singer Elle James.

Winchester University Choir and Intergr8 Dance will also be performing.

Organisers Winchester Business Improvement District has also changed the layout of the stage to ensure more people can come to the event after a record 7,000 turned up last year.

Amy McCartan, BID marketing manager, said: “We are delighted that this year we have got some great bands to keep the crowd entertained during the Christmas Lights Switch on event.

“The event is growing year on year and we didn’t want to disappoint the thousands of visitors who attend. We hope that everyone has an enjoyable evening and gets in the mood for a spot of Christmas shopping.”

The stage will be erected across the road in The Broadway from the Guildhall to Subway, rather than along the side of the road as before.

It means there will be more space for visitors to gather up the High Street to see the festive entertainment.

There is also a chance for a head-start on Christmas shopping with festive market stalls open throughout the event selling food, crafts and toys.

Shopping opportunities continue as the traditional Christmas market returns to Winchester on November 22.

It begins with the annual lantern parade from the Great Hall at 6pm, moving down the High Street to the cathedral grounds.

The market, in Cathedral Close, is one of Winchester’s biggest Christmas attractions, with around 350,000 visitors expected.

It features a variety of stalls and is open daily from 10am-6pm from Sunday to Wednesday and until 7.30pm on Thursdays to Saturdays until December 23. The open-air ice rink at the cathedral also returns on the November 22 and remains until January 6.

Families can enjoy skating from 10am-7.30pm daily and there are also ‘tiny tots’ sessions available at 9.45am from Mondays to Fridays.

Comment now! Register or sign in below.

Or

Bruce Foxton’s new band have just released an album and are rocking it live; proof in the pudding if ever it were needed that they are a brilliant band in their own right…

During the last half of the 1970s something changed for a suburban kid living nestled between council estates and sun-scorched park fields. Almost overnight Farah Fawcett’s poster was unceremoniously taken down and the blu-tac recycled to affix three dapper looking, in not somewhat undernourished, blokes from not far off down the A3. Within a year there was no wallpaper to be seen. The Jam had not only stormed the UK charts but also my bedroom wall and my vinyl collection – sitting alongside my dad’s worn out This Is Soul Atlantic collection and my mum’s Beatles LPs. Fred Perry, Levis and feather cuts worn like a badge of honour and my political stance, bookshelf and badge collection all sprang to life prompted by a Weller lyric or interview throwaway.

Strangely enough, although the band’s lead singer and main songwriter was as good a frontman as a kid could ask, for those posters pretty much all had the complete line up on them. Like a football team with a star striker you had to accept the centre back and the midfield water carrier as vital to the grand scheme. For me, and countless others, there was no band like The Jam. Whilst Dexys Midnight Runners would probably edge them out in a Desert Island Discs face off they defined my upbringing, sang about my life and made me feel represented. Some kids at that time might have liked to fanny about to to Duran Duran and their unfathomable and utterly banal warblings, others decided a metal collection meant not washing your hair was something of a fashion statement rather than a personal hygiene issue, but for me, and fuckloads more like me, The Jam really were spot on in every department.

With that in mind, when I was asked if I would like to interview Bruce Foxton, it was with a mixture of palpable nervousness and a surge of latent teenage pride that said yes as fast as my fingers could type.

A bit of diary tennis later it transpired I was to meet with all three of Bruce Foxton’s current first team. I knew instantly that meant half of my questions were dead;  too much Jam stuff and I was likely to get asked to leave by the band faster than I’d wish for. The irony of the band wanting to be seen as equals wasn’t lost on me though, so I sharpened my pencil, set about chalking up a few questions and started worrying deeply about what shoes to wear.

Pulling up in a Surrey street of mock tudor and new motors I sat in the car with the sort of nervous excitement usually reserved for last-minute-in-playoff-final occasions. One more nervous test of the iPhone recording app and a whizz through my carefully prepared questions (logically arranged so as not to stumble about like the rank amateur I feared appearing as).

The Jam really were spot on in every department

Bang on the dot I walked up and rang the doorbell. No answer. Fashionably on time I was okay with being kept waiting. This was a rehearsal I was interrupting although try as I might I couldn’t quite work out the sound of a not-so-amateur band rehearse in a nearby yard. A few rings later and lead singer Russell Hastings swung the door open and lead me into the kitchen. Ex-Big Country sticksman Mark Brzezicki was on kettle duty whilst Bruce Foxton finished up with his mobile phone. The first thing that struck me was how unfeasibly slim Foxton was. The swine. The second thing that hit was I was sitting drinking tea with the bass player from The Jam.

iPhone in the middle of the table, app rolling, I revealed I had a few questions prepared, produced some carefully typed pages and was met with something along the lines of “a few?!”

I mentioned I had seen the boys live playing some of the new LP tracks along with the Jam songs most had turned out to hear at a recent Kingsmeadow Live gig (at AFC Wimbledon’s bar). Get in early with the credentials, first impressions and all that. I also congratulated them on the new LP, a genuine congratulation at that, and away we went.

I wondered when the writing process had started and Foxton confirmed it had been over the preceding 12 months or so. Bits and pieces strung together and then worked up as a band. I had a question that was to compare and contrast it to the process The Jam employed knowing it might be prickly. (The famous fall out between the three Woking wonders a few years back was apparently over song writing royalties.) Bruce pretty much confirmed this by saying that although Paul had ended up with songwriting credits the songs were still heavily reliant on contributed drum parts, bass lines, all ideas thrown in the pot. Clearly not only was The Jam a three piece live but also the song construction was viewed as such. It also served some warning that trying too hard to unpick Jam answers was rocky territory. Politely I made a mental note to try and ignore what I’d previously described as “the elephant in the room” – namely Bruce’s previous band. Tricky stuff interviewing a band who play live as From The Jam.

The LP has a very live feel and sounds as if it was recorded without too many overdubs or convoluted arrangements. Russell Hastings made it clear that had been the intention all along, a faithful live sound and feel being the target; “we never wanted Beach Boys overdubs,” says Bruce. A listen to the LP confirms they got what they wanted.

“That ‘T’ word you mention” spits Hastings, “people who use that don’t know what they are talking about.”

The recording had taken place at Weller’s Blackbarn studio down in deepest Surrey. How was that? I wondered. “We had plenty of time to record and was pretty much left alone, in-between Paul, Steve Cradock and The Moons that is,” Foxton informed. Songs were recorded in twos and threes whith the band all close together, live takes, with Charlie the house engineer lending encouragement.

Steve “Stax legend” Cropper appears on the LP, I’d been wondering since hearing that just how to had come about and just what it was like when he turned up in a Surrey village complete with a curry house, a great little boozer and open fields. Sadly Cropper hadn’t made it in person (dashing my theory he’d arrive in a long black car armed with a Telecaster and bottle of hooch). The band shares management with the great man and after being asked and agreeing Cropper then missed the session to appear on Ronnie Woods’s TV show. True to his word though the backing tracks were sent to Nashville for some signature Cropper licks on “Don’t Waste My Time.”

Mark Brzezicki made a point that the tracks were all left with some “space” in order for others to contribute. The “others” in question, aforementioned Cropper aside, involved one curveball and one more obvious contribution. Curveball- Spandau Ballet’s Steve “Plonker” Norman. How that came about was a fairly long tale. Foxton had been working on a festival idea with Morrisons (yes the one that flogs so-so food to the masses) and during that time they became friends. Norman had even joined From The Jam on stage to play sax on Going Underground. A fascinating if somewhat unsettling concept. The festival ended up being binned off but the upshot was Norman appearing on the LP.

Now the obvious contribution. Obvious because it was recorded in his studio but even more obvious when you listen to the LP and especially the stand-out track and single release Number Six. John William Weller. The band had made the point that everyone had contributed their time freely and keenly once they’d heard the tracks. Weller in particular making good use of the freedom the tracks had offered joining in playing piano, recorder and it was noted just how much fun he’d had overdubbing a cymbal on one track.

Ah, a window. Back to The Jam… a gentle introduction by way of asking about playing live as what some see as a tribute act featuring an original member. Not so gentle it turns out. “That ‘T’ word you mention” spits Hastings, “people who use that don’t know what they are talking about.” I’ll testify, having seen the band close up playing those songs there’s nothing remotely odd about it. The passion and respect is evident. I think that’s the point, it’s more than heartfelt and certainly no cabaret. Foxton steps in: “When Rick (original Jam drummer and former From The Jam sticksman for those unaware of the twisting history) and I  first discussed taking these songs live we thought very hard about it. But they deserve an audience.” Something Weller obviously agrees upon having slipped more and more Jam material into his own set in the last decade. “We have massive respect for those songs” adds the man now charged with delivering the main vocals, “we know what they mean to people.”

“I think we had 1-2 years left in us but I suppose there’s something to be said about going out at the top.”

I’m in. Time to unleash some more of the questions I’d prepared when I thought it would be just Bruce and I chatting. I was curious as to how The Jam would have fared if they’d stuck about given how “real” music was gradually replaced by synth strings and studio-based projects as the 80?s unfolded. “Dunno, I haven’t got a crystal ball. I think we had 1-2 years left in us but I suppose there’s something to be said about going out at the top.” I offered a “Beatles not Stones” line I’d remembered Weller consoling me with when the band broke up and broke hearts.

Switch. Back to the current band. I ask Russell what gear he used on the LP, obviously playing Jam era Rickenbackers live did he use anything else on the LP? “I’ve had my Ricky 30 years, I used that mainly. Some 6 and 12 string Gibson acoustic stuff. Paul did suggest on one track I re-record using his Gibson. I thought ‘might as well give this old thing a try.”  Bruce, same gear as The Jam? In order to sound either educated or just plain fucking obsessive I noted he played live with a Rickenbacker 4001 but tried adding Fender Precision pick-ups as he’d been recording with said Fender. “I’ve still got a few butchered 4001?s where I tried to change their sound but they are not for changing. They look great but I just prefer the sound of the Fender.” Spotter’s badge duly awarded. Same question re amps: “I’m back playing a Marshall head with 2 cabs. I tried Ampeg and used them with Stiff Little Fingers but the valves kept breaking down, so back to Marshall it was”. Even the other two band members had glazed over at this point so I dare’nt think what those reading think…

I paid tribute to Foxton’s playing, brazenly declaring him a bass legend much to his own embarrassment. I stand by that and it’s one of the reason From The Jam are worthy, especially live and in your face. “Bruce isn’t best placed to comment on that” jokes Brzezicki, “But I can answer. I know how good he is. He is up there with the greats”. Whilst good humoured banter breaks out I ask Foxton how easy the switch was after naming McCartney, Jack Bruce, Bruce Foxton – all guitarists turned bass playing legends (fuck it, I was on a roll). “It’s easier, there’s only four strings” Foxton offers, an “in” gag that bands have probably been cracking since the first electric rehearsal ever happened. “I listened to a few, mostly Entwhistle, and loved it. I took it from there”.

With the band itching to get back to the soundproofed rehearsal room in the back yard I spin through a set of questions for them all to answer…

Desert Island LP? Hastings goes for All Mod Cons, before a quick change to Never Mind The Bollocks and a confession of getting into trouble with the missus for playing Bodies to his kid whilst in the car. Mark Brzezicki, without flinching, offers up The Who’s Live At Leeds which gets Foxton, in last place, pondering. “I was going to say My Generation but probably something by the Four Tops. Or maybe ToTo.” He was joking, definitely.

Best gig you’ve seen? Mark Brzezicki stays with The Who, electing for a California gig 10 years ago, Foxton agrees, then reels off a series of Who gigs.  “Any of them, simply another level, all of them.”  The man charged with singing Paul Weller’s work proudly announces “The Jam, Newcastle City Hall, Settings Sons tour, 1980.”

With that, Foxton cracks the whip, time’s up, and the band have to get back to running through The Jam’s debut LP (From The Jam will be celebrating 35 years since In The City was released by touring it live).

“What’s next?” Hastings enquires.  ”Bricks and Mortar” confirms Foxton, before the band return to their instruments, 35 years after Foxton first ran through them. For songs to matter that much, after such a passing of time is the Jam’s legacy, and with that I’m off. Not before nicking a Foxton signature on an In The City LP cover photoshoot out take. Sod it, I might never get the chance again.
If you liked this, check these out

The Jam: The Band That Inspired Me To Be A Music Writer

Paul Weller Interviewed: “Not All Noel’s Stories About Me Are True”

Click here for more stories on Music

Click here to follow Sabotage Times on Twitter

Click here to follow Sabotage Times on Facebook

 

 

The first series of BBC2’s The Hour was not at all shabby. Once it outran the predictable comparisons with Mad Men, it proved itself a smart and tense unpicking of the troubled birth of investigative TV reporting, played out by its impeccable characters: Dominic West, Romola Garai and Ben Whishaw. But the second series – blimey! Set 10 months on, in 1957, it throbs with newfound sass, ambition and raunch. Lead writer Abi Morgan’s lines zing and fizz and the main cast is even better, the originals supplemented by Peter Capaldi, Hannah Tointon and Oona Chaplin.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed Chaplin in last year’s run, but nothing like this. She spent most of that series in sumptuous A-line frocks hectoring Hector, her philandering husband, played by West. This time, she is fierce and ambitious, a formidable woman in a show not short of them. “The first series was much more centred on intellect; you really had to engage with it,” she says. “But this one – mainly because of the beautiful, scantily clad girls – you go, ‘Okey-dokey! Anything can happen.'”

Chaplin, 26, who had a peripatetic upbringing that dropped her in Switzerland, Cuba and Gordonstoun boarding school, Scotland, concedes she might not have been the obvious choice for the 50s domestic goddess, Marnie.

“I was once told on a drunken night by a casting director who will remain unnamed that I was classed as ‘miscellaneously ethnic’,” she says. “And it made sense – up to that point I was mainly playing terrorists or Brazilians. But I’m so grateful they took a chance for The Hour and said, ‘You’re not an English rose but you can do this.'”

The lone inspiration she could draw on was her grandmother, also named Oona Chaplin, the fourth and most enduring wife of Charlie. “My grandmother is the closest thing I can think of to Marnie: very rich, very beautiful, fashionable, a successful woman in the shadow of her husband,” she says. “She died in 1991, but I’ve read her letters and she was always very forward-thinking, incredibly wise.” This was boosted by research in the library into pioneering TV cooks such as Julia Child and Fanny Cradock: “Then I went home and YouTubed the crap out of them.”

Being “miscellaneously ethnic” is working better for Chaplin these days. After The Hour, she will pop up next in the third season of the powerhouse that is Game of Thrones. “It should be illegal to have that much fun working! It’s incredible to be part of a show where 300 million people watch every episode and you’re like, ‘I believe in it. It’s not some trashy thing, it’s amazing.'”