Overlooking the Tower of London, which houses the royal jewels of past kings and queens of England, Rotunda at Ten Trinity Square will celebrate the most visited artefacts in Britain with its new afternoon tea. For the ultimate luxury experience, guests can book a private roof terrace where they can enjoy the quintessential British pastime with a view over the iconic landmark and the River Thames.
On the menu, traditional finger sandwiches created by Rotunda’s Executive Chef David Greenhill celebrate British classics including egg mayonnaise with truffle oil, coronation chicken and the classic minted cucumber. Inspired by the world-famous Crown Jewels, Executive Pastry Chef Sylvain Nicolas has created a selection of pastries including a griotte amarena cherry and liquorice macaron topped with a silver jewel; Yorkshire rhubarb, jasmine tea, chantilly and strawberry combawa confit adorned with a crown; a citrusy lemon meringue choux with hazelnut streusel and lime jelly; and finally, a single origin Madagascan Manjari chocolate tart with sansho berry and fresh raspberries, topped with gold leaf. No British afternoon tea would be complete without freshly baked homemade scones with seasonal jams and Devonshire clotted cream, all served on the handcrafted bone china heritage tea service designed by prominent British designer Richard Brendon.
Paying homage to Ten Trinity Square’s past incarnation as the hub of Britain’s trading routes, the Crown Jewels Afternoon Tea includes some of the world’s top teas from the foothills of the Himalayas with the finest darjeeling from Makaibari to Earl Greys from Satemwa Estate in the highlands of Malawi, while British-grown brews include Cornish peppermint tea and Cornish manuka brought to the Tregothan Estate in Cornwall more than 200 years ago from New Zealand. Champagnes will include Delamotte Brut, Charles Heidsieck and AR Lenoble Rosé available by the glass.
“Afternoon tea is such a staple of British culture, so we wanted to honour that with a traditional menu inspired by the royal Crown Jewels just a short walk away from the impressive building at Ten Trinity Square. We have aimed to celebrate the best of British, highlighting some of the best teas and produce from around the country,” says Executive Chef David Greenhill.
The Crown Jewels Afternoon Tea is served in the Rotunda daily between 2 and 5 pm.
High Street Kensington is a quintessentially English place, but there is a small part that bucks that trend, just next to High Street Kensington tube station, namely Japan House, as it promotes all things Japanese.
As you enter Japan House, it has a similar feel to a well known mobile phone brand store, as it is all white, minimalistic and there isn’t a product out of place. Japan House is the new cultural home of Japan in London and showcases the very best of Japanese art, design, gastronomy, innovation, and technology. The gastronomy side is why we found ourselves in Japan House, as it houses their Japanese restaurant Akira, which is situated on the first floor.
The restaurant is named after Chef Shimizu Akira, and shows off all that is best in Japanese food, including its presentation.
A restaurant experience is based not just on its food but also its welcome, and the ambiance at Akira ticks all these boxes with its understated, elegant design and the omotenashi welcome (for the uninitiated, which included me, a shouted greeting from the chefs when you enter the restaurant). The design is unassuming with wooden chairs and tables separated from the bar by a simple latticed black wooden screen, and the room is dominated by the open kitchen where the skilled chefs weave their magic.
Choosing off a Japanese menu is, for me, a daunting experience, as the selection is always extensive and everything sounds wonderful. For that reason, my eye always looks for a selection or set menu, and Akira has a section called Omakase (the literal translation is “I’ll leave it up to you”), which includes a selection of 3 or 5-course menus. There is a Robata Omakase, which includes meats flamed on the Robata grill or the Sushi Omakase, for the sushi lover, and both are split between 3 (£60) and 5 (£75) courses.
We selected the 3-course Robata Omakase and our meal started with a wonderful appetiser of fresh blue fin tuna, caviar balls and crunchy rice all blended together with a slightly sharp sauce. The flavour explosion was intense and the mixture of textures inspired, and all this was served in a hollowed-out rock stimulating all of your senses, especially your sight. The next course was the sashimi which included an assortment of sashimi, Japanese osozai side dishes and a vegetable selection. In keeping with our dramatic experience so far, these dishes were served in a wooden box split into 15 identical compartments. Japanese style traditionally abhors different flavoured dishes touching each other on a single plate, so this was a novel way to adhere to the old ways and etiquette. The box contained wonderfully fresh sashimi of eel, salmon, and tuna, along with tempura prawn, an arancini ball, potato salad and crunchy vegetables. The best dish however, was a strip of smoked mackerel on a bed of steamed spinach which had been marinated in a punchy sauce.
The main course was brought on a hot rock and included tender wagu beef, succulent lamb chop, chicken skewers and tempura vegetables all served with a rich miso soup. According to Japanese custom, the solid ingredients in a good miso soup are chosen to reflect the seasons and to provide contrasts of colour, texture, and flavour, and here strongly flavoured ingredients were mixed with delicately flavoured ingredients to provide a warming miso soup.
Japanese food is healthy and prides itself on always using the freshest seasonal ingredients, and Akira is true to these principles, but it doesn’t just provide a great meal, it provides the diner with an overall Japanese experience which elevates your evening to a new level.
In cinemas for one night only on the 4th of July across the UK & Ireland, The Cold Blue is a new feature-length film, digitally restored, and created for the immersive experience of the big screen. Constructed from the material of 34 reels of raw, colour, footage shot during bombing missions in Germany, originally shot for the 1944 documentary The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress by William Wyler, incredibly all this footage was recently discovered, deep in the vaults of the National Archives by Director/Producer Erik Nelson.
In 1943, Wyler, known for cinematic masterpieces such as “Ben-Hur” (1959) documented the Air War in progress during WWII via captured footage of bombing missions over Europe whilst flying actual combat missions with B17’s. Wyler flew with the young service men from the US 8th Air Force, who were flying complicated and hazardous missions on a daily basis.
Not about just stating facts of what occurred, The Cold Blue puts the audience into the cockpit where on 10 hour round trips they suffered air temperatures comparable to a trip up Mount Everest. The film, narrated by nine of the few surviving B-17 pilot veterans from the missions, resurrects not only the footage but resurrects the stories of these servicemen as a legacy for future generations and dedicates itself to the heroic actions of the men who faced almost certain death on a daily basis.
Paired with an exclusive behind the scenes look at the making of, The Cold Blue includes a compelling and evocative look at WW2 via a range of unique perspectives, how the UK viewed the support of the allied troops, interviews with the 8th Airforce veterans and with director Eric Nelson & Wyler’s daughter Catherine, telling the remarkable story behind the “found footage” and how The Cold Blue was created.
Jenny Kingsley explores an artistic venture with a moral purpose.
Let me tell you a story about how a concrete with brass cube can become as personally valuable as a precious gem or, to put it another way, how a stone can acquire a conscience. The power of remembrance sparks the change.
The tale begins in Germany, in the early 1990s, when the Cologne based sculptor and conceptual artist Gunter Demnig endeavoured to memorialise collectively the 1,000 Gypsies who were deported by the Nazis from the city in 1940. He painted a white line through the city showing where decades earlier the Gypsies had been pushed through the streets to the railway station.
“An old lady stopped by and scolded my work, insisting there had never been any Gypsies in Cologne,” recalls Demnig. Appalled by her denial, the artist investigated the city's history to find proof that in the 1930s thousands of Gypsies and Jews had lived next door to the Germans in Cologne. Mr. Demnig then thought of the idea of Stolpersteine (“stumbling blocks”), commemorating individuals, which would be embedded in the streets where they had lived or worked.
Mr Demnig explains that “it goes beyond our comprehension to understand the killing of six million Jews…But if you read the name of one person, calculate his age, look at his old home and wonder behind which window he used to live, then the horror has a face to it”. Demnig shares a quote that is meant to come from The Talmud (the written version of Jewish oral law): “a person is not forgotten until his or her name is forgotten”.
Indeed, if you come to think of it, all over the world, in public and sacrosanct places, there are memorials, be they statues, sculptures or plaques, commemorating people revered as exceptional because he or she has fought bravely in war and battle, enhanced our cultural heritage, exhibited military and statesmanlike leadership, remedied human rights abuse or discovered life changing phenomena. There are memorials in respect of animals that have aided people in battle; one famous one is dedicated to the animals that died alongside the British, Commonwealth and Allied forces in 20th century conflicts; it is located in Park Lane, London. There are statues memorialising literary characters such as Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes and Tintin.
People, as a group, who have been the victims of appalling degradation, abuse and torture because of their race, religion, physical disability or mental illness, are memorialised. One fine example is the Nigerian born Sokari Douglas Camp’s All the World is Now Richer, a steel sculpture commemorating the abolition of slavery, which has been exhibited at St Paul’s Cathedral, Norfolk Cathedral, Bristol Cathedral and the House of Commons. The Holocaust memorials cannot fail to come to mind.
However, excepting Demnig’s venture, there have been few public memorials (save those of Anne Frank) solely dedicated to an individual, who is not necessarily remarkable in the illustrious sense of the word, but simply a decent human being who was persecuted because he or she happened to believe in the ‘wrong’ God or religious sect, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, supported the ‘wrong’ political party, loved someone who was of his own sex, suffered from a physical deformity, lived an itinerant lifestyle, engaged in prostitution, or whose skin was ‘coloured’ or race considered contemptible. Demnig puts this wrong to right, with his Stolpersteine – “stumbling blocks” –creations.
These cubes of concrete, measuring 10cm by 10cm (4 in by 4 in), are capped with a brass plate engraved with the name, year of birth and fate of the victim (eugenics, euthanasia, extermination or suicide) and embedded into pavements, roadways or among cobblestones very close to where the victim last lived in freedom or worked. The surface of the plaque is flush with the ground. Stolpersteine are hand made and hand embossed by Michael Friedrichs-Friendlander and almost all are, except in certain circumstances, installed by Gunter Demnig.
In 1995, Mr Demnig laid the first 200 Stolpersteine in Cologne, ‘unofficially’. It was only in 2000 that he was given official permission by Cologne city council to fit them on public land.
After this first laying of the blocks, word about the Stolpersteine spread far and wide. Indeed, since then many people in Germany and elsewhere throughout Western and Eastern Europe have participated in and continue to participate in the enterprise, which has turned into the biggest project of Demnig’s career.
Now, there are over 70,000 “stumbling blocks” in 24 countries in Eastern and Western Europe. Recognising that there are certain cases when hundreds of Stolpersteine could be laid in one place, which is practically impossible, Demnig’s alternative is to install a Stolperschwelle – “stumbling thresholds”. This records the fate of many in a few lines. Those who suffered as a result of being incarcerated in a particular sanatorium would merit a Stolperschwelle. There is one in Argentina, which was laid at the Pestalozzi School in Buenos Aires to honour its role as a refuge for those persecuted by the Nazis, a home in reality for hundreds of Jewish children. On the plaque is a quote from Margot Aberle Strauss from Hamburg who, in 1938, when she was ten years old, fled from Germany to Argentina with her family and enrolled at the school. “The school gave me a sense of security and made the trauma of exile a lot easier.” The Pestalozzi School was founded in 1934 as an alternative to the existing German schools in Argentina, which had become associated with the Nazis.
“[The plaque is] an exception: we usually want to mark the places where the Nazi crimes and persecution began, but we think it's also very important to focus on the places where the people who had to leave their countries were located," Anna Warda, a leading member of the Stolpersteine project, said in an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE, in 2017. These are not meant to be examples of one block, one person, and one name. Admittedly, they memorialize a group.
Local school children and their teachers, victims’ relatives and local history organisations undertake archival research in order to find out who once lived in their streets and their homes and raise money for the creation and installation of the blocks. The Stolpersteine cost 120 euros; Demnig can produce about 440 of them each month. It could take nearly a year from the submission of the application for a Stolperstein to the time of installation.
In the New Yorker magazine, Elizabeth Kolbert recalls her encounter with Demnig when she recently went to the installation of a block memorialising her great grandmother: “Demnig has wild gray hair and sad eyes, and he reminded me a bit of Bert Lahr [who played the cowardly lion] in The Wizard of Oz. He was wearing a felt hat, clogs, and khakis, and had a pad strapped on one knee”. One can find films on the Internet about the project that portray Demnig installing the blocks and people praying for the victims and giving speeches about the circumstances concerning their persecution. Sometimes there are a few people present for the laying of the blocks; sometimes there are many; some of those attending may have travelled thousands of miles to witness the installation. It is their ancestor who is being named in brass. The installation may be in a quiet side street, or a busy thoroughfare. Deming brings his own tools and concrete for the installation. He works patiently and carefully; one could suggest with gentleness.
Volunteers help to administer and manage the enterprise. Based in Hamburg, Peter Hess, an art collector, coordinates historical research. The concept of the Stolpersteine is protected by copyright and registered as a trademark.
The Stolpersteine can be a cause for controversy. Some of these modest stones have been vandalised since the programme began. One man was caught on camera uprooting a Stolperstein in the town of Boppard, Germany nearly eighteen months ago, although he was not prosecuted. Others have tried to prevent installations in front of their homes, but as, legally, pavements are considered public space, if the council has granted permission for installation, the opponents’ efforts are thwarted. Some people find the fact that they are underfoot – in the dirt, so to speak - disrespectful, insulting.
Last year, Wolfgang Gedeon a member of Germany’s far right nationalist party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), wrote “with their actions, the stumbling stone initiators impose a culture of remembrance on their fellow human beings, dictating to them how they should remember who and when…who gives these obtrusive moralists the right to do so?”
Initially, Munich city council rejected the project as an inappropriate means of remembrance, though the Stolpersteine already installed have, since last year, been allowed to remain. In July the city inaugurated a Holocaust memorial initiative of its own. This entails vertically displayed, gold plated, stainless steel plaques, 12 cm x 12 cm (5 in x 5 in), with victims’ details and etched portraits. If there is no suitable place on the wall, or the house owner does not agree to the installation, a stainless steel post with a gold plated sleeve can be put up instead.
Naming people is a function of every culture in the world, a defining characteristic of humankind. When we introduce ourselves, the first words we speak are “hello, my name is …” When we hear that a friend’s baby has been born, one of the first questions we ask is “what will the baby be called?” We mark, we distinguish and we remember people by their names. If the name of a victim of Nazi persecution is engraved on a Stolperstein, hopefully, not only will the distinguished one never be forgotten but also the horror of how he or she could have been forgotten will remain with us always, never to be repeated again. Would you ever have thought that a cube of concrete could be imbued with a sense of right and wrong?
For detailed information about the Stolpersteine project, including how to apply for an installation, please visit here.
Top image: A Stolpersteine. Image courtesy of Hans Weingartz.
Bottom image: Gunter Demnig installing a Stolperstein.
Supporting children through relocation, Assistant Dean of Overseas Admissions at ACS International Schools, Anastasia Cotton, shares her favourite storybook titles on transition and change.
Travelling half-way around the world for international relocation is a huge change for even the most well-adjusted adult to manage – so how can we support children experiencing the move, whilst juggling the tricky business of growing up?
As with so many transitional stages of childhood and adolescence, support and discussion initiated with a story – or picture book for younger children – can be a gentle way to approach any worries.
“It’s easier for children to process things they hear ‘third-hand’ during reading-time cuddles,” explained clinical psychologist Wayne Fleisig to The Washington Post.
“Books can be a good and non-threatening platform in which to discuss difficult subjects. There are pictures to distract them if things get overwhelming and they do not have to approach the subject head on, but instead can take in a small amount at a time.”
For children who might be experiencing a range of feelings – loss, sadness, uncertainty, anxiety, anger, and even excitement – it can be helpful to select a number of titles to choose from in both the run up to moving day, and in the first months of re-settlement.
Parents might find that children identify with a particular character or series of books, and revisiting these stories can provide an additional comfort in unfamiliar surroundings, as well as acting as useful tools for conversation. For little ones who are unsure how to articulate their emotional reactions, it can help give them the words and phrases they need to ask for support in a meaningful way.
“How do you think Alexander was feeling as his parents packed up his house in this story? Can you think of anything that would have made Sammy the Snail feel better? Let’s do the same as this story and unpack our toys first, and then cook our favourite meal! We’re changing country, language and culture, but this is what we’re not going to change.”
Supporting activities such as scrapbooking, story-writing, journaling and writing to pen-pals can also be both calming and encouraging for a lot of children. In one of my recommended titles, B at Home, the main character is given a booklet to document her adventure, and it becomes an important keepsake of a life-changing move.
Very often, one of the most daunting elements of moving countries is the prospect of facing a new school and all the associated challenges, from adapting to new teaching styles to making friends during recess or in class.
“Relocated adolescents often face a double stress of adapting to an alien environment, a new school, and building new friendships and social networks, while simultaneously coping with the fundamental biological and developmental transitions that their peers also experience,” says British researcher, Roger Webb, for the American Journal of Preventative Medicine.
Here at ACS, our school environment is built around helping students manage these transitional stages, easing children and teens gently – and quickly – into life in the UK.
Our new families have a readymade community on hand to share their experiences, knowledge and to help them settle into their new homes. Each school has a fully trained pastoral care team and counsellors alongside programmes including the Welcome Team; a group of parents and staff on hand to help families adjust.
The extended community here welcomes new families and fosters long-lasting and supportive friendships not only within school, but via weekend BBQs and breakfasts, matching relocated families for email exchange, international fairs, student-buddy programmes, our popular annual High Tea and, of course, regular book clubs.
Alongside all these wonderful methods of support offered by schools, friends and family, it is our experience that starting with a story is a great first step in helping children adjust during times of transition. Stories have the power to help readers handle not only their own feelings but other people’s too, which goes full circle in our ACS family as children experienced in relocation help their new peers navigate the change happily and successfully.
In cinemas for one night only on the 4th of July across the UK & Ireland, The Cold Blue is a new feature-length film, digitally restored, and created for the immersive experience of the big screen. Constructed from the material of 34 reels of raw, colour, footage shot during bombing missions in Germany, originally shot for the 1944 documentary The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress by William Wyler, incredibly all this footage was recently discovered, deep in the vaults of the National Archives by Director/Producer Erik Nelson.
Let me tell you a story about how a concrete with brass cube can become as personally valuable as a precious gem or, to put it another way, how a stone can acquire a conscience. The power of remembrance sparks the change.
“[The plaque is] an exception: we usually want to mark the places where the Nazi crimes and persecution began, but we think it's also very important to focus on the places where the people who had to leave their countries were located," Anna Warda, a leading member of the Stolpersteine project, said in an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE, in 2017. These are not meant to be examples of one block, one person, and one name. Admittedly, they memorialize a group.
Travelling half-way around the world for international relocation is a huge change for even the most well-adjusted adult to manage – so how can we support children experiencing the move, whilst juggling the tricky business of growing up?
Designtec Web Design