Monthly Archives: January 2021

Watching a programme on the famous London Hotel The Ritz has Murray Chalmers thinking about the nicer things in life.

One of my favourite quotes ever came from Andy Warhol who, when asked what he would most wish for, answered money for everyone.

This struck me as one of the most profound comments ever uttered by my hero still lazily dismissed as a glib controversialist by those who label him the banal king of 57 varieties of Campbells soup cans but, for me, the true artistic genius of our times.

Ive been thinking a lot about luxury recently, mainly because I watched a programme about the Ritz hotel, but also because there is such a lack of glamour and excitement in life right now.

I have to say I loved the programme, which was only made in 2019, although it already makes the hotel seem amazingly anachronistic and even more out of touch than normal given that it was made in a year when no one could have imagined the horror the world would find itself in a year later.

The Ritz, a beacon for wealth, ostentation and gilded privilege, sums up part of my life lived in the fast lane of the media world in London, when expense accounts were large and we children of the 50s and 60s could sit in the Groucho private members club and feel that the capital was our playground.

This was an age when there was always time for another drink, another party and even more fun. Life seemed eternally optimistic and I feel very grateful to have lived in and beyond those hedonistic times.

I distinctly remember my annual visits for a check-up to my doctor always ended with him saying your liver is fine and me asking how can that be?, knowing that hed been at the same party as me the night before.

Even then, going to posh hotels like the Ritz, the Connaught or Claridges felt like a rare treat and a stay at the Ritz in Paris (far nicer and even more chic than the London hotel) made everywhere else pale in comparison.

My stays at the Ritz in Paris were normally when I was accompanying Yoko Ono, so her gang were treated with even more reverence than normal. I must admit that the quiet hum of efficiency hanging in the hotel air above a decorous layer of deference was both captivating and guiltily intoxicating, especially after a Champagne cocktail or two.

While swimming in the beautiful ornate pool of this loveliest hotel in my favourite city of Paris I did sometimes think back to my life growing up in a Lochee tenement and thanked God for health, good luck and a career even on the unfortunate visit when I swam in the Ritz pool with shingles, thinking it was a heat rash, and checked out under a scratchy cloak of itchiness, calamine lotion and shame.

Of course the Ritz was never real life, which seemed to pause as you went through those famous Parisian revolving doors, the same doors captured in the footage of Princess Dianas arrival at the hotel on the night she died.

In truth, I always felt like a tourist in the Ritz and could never really escape the feeling that I was somehow punching above my weight but then thats one of the points of grand hotels, really, behaving like you were born to the life while secretly smuggling in wine from the supermarket down the road because its a tenth of the cost of the mini bar.

Real life in the Ritz, for me, meant taking the postcards from the stationery drawer in my room, keeping each days new soaps and bath oils and wondering if they really would notice if the bathrobe were to disappear all to prove that, for a short time, I was part of a lifestyle that was both impossibly glamorous and ultimately unattainable.

The food in the Ritz was amazing both in Paris and in London and it was while remembering the beauty of the London dining room that I also recalled the brilliance of executive chef John Williams MBE, a legend at the hotel since 2004.

As the TV programme continued and I was reminiscing with my friend David about lunch with Kylie and drinks with Siouxsie Sioux in the Ritz bar, we both got a bit giddy with the feeling that one day we would all have a world outside our window again, even if mine is now very different to the starry episodes of the past.

I was also a bit giddy with the effects of the very good Justerini and Brooks burgundy stocked by Balgove Larder, a bottle of which didnt really even touch the sides that night (to be fair, there were two of us drinking and we were both a bit down about lockdown).

As is now the norm after a few glasses of wine and thoughts of escapism, I was soon online looking for the Ritz Cookbook and when I saw it was available for 20 (the same figure that Douglas Ross abstained-voted against paying to those on Universal Credit, people who need it to buy food and heat their homes), I was sold. A day later, 240 pages of vicarious, sublime glamour were in my hands.

This is a beautiful book, not just for the recipes within but for the depiction of perfection and attention to detail that only the best dining rooms and bars achieve.

As such its one that is ideal for those interminable days of winter when a gale is blowing outside and respite from the drudgery of life can be provided by just thinking about the very idea of making a slow-cooked duck egg, pomme pure and truffle or saddle of lamb belle poque for your tea.

Its probably true to say that my current inertia means that I will cook very few dishes from this book during this hellish year but its an excellent reminder of the power of imagination and how remembering happier, safer times not necessarily in posh hotels can be a way to get through the toughest days.

Theres only one blight with this cookbook. One of the final recipes is for a coffee mousse with marsala jelly which comes as a reminder that some things, however poshly presented, will never bring happy memories.

As with bluebottles, snakes, rats, flavoured waters and buying pre-cut onion, I have to ask myself what is the point in jelly, Rowntrees, marsala or wine gums?

Even the word gelatine makes me wince. Apart from that, the book is highly recommended.

Closer to home, joy was brought by a lunch delivery from Tayble Deli in Dundee, part of the Dundee Cooking Academy and the new Howff Secret Supper Club family. The deli produces affordable takeaway food with dishes prepared by chefs with high end-Michelin star experience and it shows.

I was already a fan of the deli on Bank Street before we went into the first lockdown and it was great to discover I could order their great food online.

One of the issues I have locally is that I dont always want a home delivery of very cheffy food, although of course many times I do want that and would wholeheartedly recommend somewhere like the Tayberry.

But yesterday I had a fairly busy and stressful morning and it came to lunchtime and I couldnt be bothered cooking, and I certainly didnt want anything fussy.

Thats not to say I dont want innovation and top quality for want of a better descriptive phrase what I really wanted was the equivalent of food from a street food stall, with punchy flavours cooked assertively.

Thats exactly what I found in the new additions to Taybles home delivery offerings from which we ordered the following: bao buns with crispy pork, honey mustard dressing and Asian slaw; teriyaki glazed chicken wings with spring onion and sesame; smoked haddock and dauphinoise bon bons with crispy leek and smoked cheese sauce; bao buns with sticky cauliflower and Asian slaw; feta salad (those two simple words hide the joy to be found in this dish) and a dessert including white chocolate Oreo fudge and a ginger snap and tonka biscuit.

The savoury dishes were all 6.50 except for the deliciously fresh feta salad, a bargain at 3.50. Lunch came to a total of 29.50 but two of us got three meals out of it, with me finishing the delicious bao bun for breakfast. For food of this quality, delivered to your door, I call that a bargain.

Lewis Donegan, executive head chef of the venture, is on to a real winner here. Everything we had was delicious and I will definitely be ordering from Tayble again and again.

I will also be ordering from the more complex dishes offered by the Howff Secret Supper club, a newish venture that was set to launch as a physical space before lockdown but is now online for the time being.

With the Ritz cookbook, a delivery of such great street food from Tayble, a bottle of Burgundy and the first episode of the glorious First Dates on TV (I dont believe in guilty pleasure, only pleasure) then January can do one in the grandest way possible.

Bring on the spring!

The Ritz London cookbook by John Williams, MBE, 20

Tayble Deli: Facebook Tayble Deli

dundeecookingacademy.com

howffsecretsupperclub.co.uk

Murray Chalmers on the tasty dishes that mean the New Year diet may not be so tough after all

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Murray Chalmers puts on the Ritz: Hedonism and Yoko Ono in the fast lane of the media world - The Courier

Rob Lowe signs autographs after unveiling his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2015.(Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)Take it from someone who took the Eighties for everything it had: Hedonism is overrated.

As a boy in Dayton, Ohio, and continuing after his unstable, divorced mother moved the family to Malibu so she could (only after arriving) announce that she was marrying a doctor she had met in a clinic that offered Seventies quackery to people with unexplained allergies, Rob Lowe thought of himself as an awkward theater nerd. When it came to flirting with girls, I had no game whatsoever, he recalls in his sagacious autobiography, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. Evidence accumulated to the contrary; for his 14th birthday, for instance, a girl he didnt know particularly well offered him a birthday cake and sex. (On the beach. It was lovely, he says.) He was barely 19 when Nastassia Kinski, one of his co-stars on The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) and generally acknowledged to be one of the worlds great beauties, openly propositioned him, and he didnt quite grasp what was happening. She shot him a look that said, Helloooo? Do I need to spell it out? he writes.

But something changed in him when he played the freewheeling, sax-playing, shades-wearing, drinks-drinking cad, Billy, in one of the signature teen films of its era, St. Elmos Fire (1985). The director Joel Schumacher wasnt sold on Lowe for the role, which the actor won only after showing up for an audition with a six-pack of Corona and swigging liberally as he pitched himself. Lowe enjoyed playing the roguish charmer so much that he started to play him in real life. In the famous June 1985 New York magazine profile of him and his co-stars Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson whose headline introduced the sobriquet the Brat Pack, Lowe (who was then 21) and Co. were holding court at the Hard Rock Cafe in Los Angeles. Passing beauties circled the movie stars hungrily, desperate for a nod of attention and an invitation to sit down. Being Rob Lowe in his prime was unlike living at the candy store; lollipops dont simply jump into your shopping basket.

Lowe began to use MTV as his personal Home Shopping Network, selecting girls from videos and calling up the network to obtain their digits. But he too was an object that was being shopped for; what seemed to be a fortuitous meeting with Princess Stephanie of Monaco turned out to have been elaborately planned by her, a detail he didnt discover until he found a magazine with him on its cover in her home. It turned out that she had kept it on her nightstand for six months. At their first dinner date, she wound up sitting on his lap. He later learned that while they were flirting, she had taken a break to order servants to evict her then-boyfriend and all traces of him from her quarters so she could invite Lowe back to them. Throughout their affair, her father, Prince Rainier ,refused to acknowledge Lowes existence, but at a charity event Lowe said hello to Rainier and the three men he was standing with (Cary Grant, Robert Wagner, and Gregory Peck). As the young man was walking away, he heard Wagner say, Ya know, guys, I think that kids banged every one of our daughters. Lowe had indeed gotten to know Grant by dating his daughter, Jennifer, and the three of them had even watched one of Lowes earliest screen efforts together, with Cary Grant complimenting him on his performance and comparing him to the young Warren Beatty.

But by Lowes mid 20s, the bacchanalia was getting old. He bottomed out on an infamous trip to the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988, where he made a sex tape with a 16-year-old girl. He says he did not know she was underage; they had met at a club that had a very strict carding policy. In the book he has very little to say about the whole incident, assuming we all remember the delirious coverage at the time.

In short, Lowe lived the life that young men think they want, and it nearly destroyed him. He realizes that the way he spent his youth doesnt inspire much sympathy: Nobodys going to do a pity party or have a telethon for all those suffering 18-year-old movie stars, you know? he said recently on the Today show as he celebrated 30 years of sobriety. Yet nonstop cosseting creates its own dangers.

The night his mother phoned to tell him his grandfather had had a massive heart attack, his girlfriend had just dumped him after catching him with another woman. His instinct was to chug some tequila and go to bed, but catching a glimpse of his wasted self in the mirror, he thought, Im so hammered I can barely stand. The girl I love has just left me, because I cant keep my word and I have no integrity. My grandfather is dying, my mother is in crisis . . . and I am cowering and hiding. He begged his girlfriend to take him back, then married her. Today he and Sheryl Berkoff, a makeup artist, have been married for nearly 30 years and raised two young men together. (The sons live to troll Dad on Instagram.)

Lowe managed to find stability and satisfaction for the first time in his life when he got off the hedonic treadmill, and he reached his highest level of fulfillment as an artist when he co-starred with Martin Sheen, the father of his childhood friend Emilio Estevez, on The West Wing, although (this is the one discordant note in the entire book) he quit the show after four years in a huff about his salary. Variety reported at the time that he was getting $75,000 a week, not including residuals, which seems like not-bad pay for doing work you find satisfying and meaningful. Today Lowe stars on Foxs 9-1-1: Lone Star.

The example of Beatty, to whom Cary Grant once compared him, made Lowe uneasy rather than proud. He says he was long haunted by the final moments of Shampoo, the 1975 film in which Beatty plays a swaggering Beverly Hills hairdresser who has his pick of the ladies. The emptiness and alienation Beattys character feels at the end of that film was a distant warning to Lowe that he failed to heed for too long, although he was fortunate to have been only 26 when he finally got sober. Lowe discovered through experience what cognitive scientists have found in recent decades: that we are extraordinarily bad at predicting what will make us happy. He thought he loved what he calls the scene, but actually he was wildly uncomfortable among strangers and drank heavily to cover for it. The parade of girls that marched through his bedroom left him equally hollow. Whats the point of sharing your bed with someone you wouldnt want to share a sandwich with if you were sober? As he tells other guys: If you find yourself dating your best friend, marry her.

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Heed the Wisdom of Rob Lowe - National Review

As the number of fashion retailers closing down continues to rise, emptying at the highest rate since 1999 according to Bloomberg, optimistic analysts have forecast a post-Covid recovery.

The Economist predicted a new period of economic dynamism was on its way, while Prof Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times that things will get better and the business mogul Tilman Fertitta told CNBC : The consumer is coming back ... this is going to be the roaring 20s you can just see it.

If the last global recession in 2008 led to the internet shopping boom, will fashion be experiencing a revival of fortune?

Post-pandemic, we will certainly be looking for ways to reconnect socially - clothes, hair, make-up will be part of the therapy, says Andrew Ibi of Face, a former trend forecaster. We use clothes to communicate and to perform, they make us feel good one way or the other.

There was evidence of glamour at the recent mens and couture shows, such as the dropped shoulder tops at GMBH and the West Egg-ish style of the Casablanca collection. Azzaro and Area meanwhile featured showgirl looks with a focus on silver shading and night-time magic. For me the idea of going out or dressing up is not so much about colours, but more about textures and fabrics: satins, silk and anything shiny, says Fioruccis Daniel Fletcher, whose recent show featured dressing up clothes ready for next summer.

There are also indications that people are already buying for the period post Covid. Investment bags have seen a huge surge in demand since December and are continuing through January including Brunello Cucinelli, Berluti, Bottega Veneta and Mtier, says Damien Paul, head of menswear at Matchesfashion. We are also seeing a strong reaction to mens fine jewellery.

Fashion has already begun to reclaim fantasy as a design asset, says Ib. [Its] always optimistic and follows instinct and speculation towards the future. As designers we respond to the world around us.

Many have drawn parallels between the Covid pandemicand a century ago, during the 1918 Spanish flu. Following first world war and one of historys deadliest epidemics we had a decade of social freedom, creative boom and economic upturn.

Fashion stood nearly still from the fall of 1918 to the fall of 1920 with almost no changes in silhouette or novelty, says Jonathan Walford, curatorial director at the Fashion History Museum. He says that in the era that followed the roaring 20s fashion reflected a society driven by hedonism and a desire to look youthful.

Instead of suits men began wearing sports clothes [with] caps, plus fours [trousers] and argyle sweaters. While women wore oversized hats that slipped down over their bobbed hair and the beaded, waistless, sleeveless dresses [which] made them look like they were playing dress up in their mothers gowns.

In our own roaring 20s Ibi thinks that the way we dress will be informed by a new sense of freedom. I think we will see a broader acceptance on how to dress for any occasion, he says, whether thats wearing leggings and trainers to the opera, or full drag into the office.

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Roaring 20s: fashion world predicts post-Covid boom - The Guardian

The Stand's 2020 TV show adaptation has made some noticeable changes, with one of the biggest being how Randall Flagg's Las Vegas operates.

The Stand's 2020 TV show adaptation has made some noticeable changes, with one of the biggest being how Randall Flagg's Las Vegas operates. It's always made sense that the demonic Flagg chose to build his post-plague version of society in the so-called city of sin. Las Vegas has a reputation for being a place where anything can happen, and where dreams and wild fantasies can come true. Whether that's true or not is up for debate, but thematically, it fits Flagg like a glove.

While it might seem obvious to an outsider that Flagg is evil, that's not how he presents himself to his followers. To them, Flagg is a savior, promising a safe, prosperous life following the devastation of Captain Trips. The thing is, he can indeed provide that, at least to an extent. That changes when someone makes the unfortunate decision to challenge his power or question his decisions, as Flagg's Las Vegas is definitely not a democracy, and his word is law.

Related: The Stand 2020's Use Of "Don't Fear The Reaper" Fails The '94 Miniseries

That might sound like an obvious downgrade from the Boulder Free Zone's attempted democratic society, but history is full of people willing to trade freedom for security. In The Stand 2020, Flagg's people also get seemingly unlimited hedonism in their downtime, but that's a complete 180 from Stephen King's book.

Episode five of The Stand 2020 spends much of its running time in Randall Flagg's Las Vegas, focusing on the activities of Boulder Free Zone's spy Dayna Jurgens. Through Dayna's eyes, we see that Flagg's "New Vegas" is a den of debauchery, with the residents free to indulge in any base pleasure they see fit, provided they also do the jobs assigned to them. Characters do drugs, get drunk, have public group sex, engage in no holds barred fight pits for fun, and are generally uninhibited by the former constraints of living in normal society.

To those unfamiliar with Stephen King's book, that might seem fitting for the side of evil. But the Flagg in the book allowed no such behavior. Flagg ruled with an iron fist, banning vices like intoxicants and prostitution, partly because he wanted his people clear-headed and fully able to do the tasks he needed them to do. In fact, those who disobeyed Flagg sometimes found themselves publicly crucified as an example. While The Stand 2020's producers have said they changed that to try and make siding with Flagg look more appealing, and for the right kind of person, it certainly would, it's definitely a fundamental change to how Randall Flagg thinks and controls his society.

More: The Stand Theory: Flagg & Mother A Are Connected To Gan (& The Multiverse)

Jennifer's Body: The Real Reason The Horror Movie Bombed After Release

Michael Kennedy is an avid movie and TV fan that's been working for Screen Rant in various capacities since 2014. In that time, Michael has written over 2000 articles for the site, first working solely as a news writer, then later as a senior writer and associate news editor. Most recently, Michael helped launch Screen Rant's new horror section, and is now the lead staff writer when it comes to all things frightening. A FL native, Michael is passionate about pop culture, and earned an AS degree in film production in 2012. He also loves both Marvel and DC movies, and wishes every superhero fan could just get along. When not writing, Michael enjoys going to concerts, taking in live professional wrestling, and debating pop culture. A long-term member of the Screen Rant family, Michael looks forward to continuing on creating new content for the site for many more years to come.

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How The Stand 2020 Drastically Reinvents Randall Flagg's Las Vegas - Screen Rant

Theres something very crass about Cusp, and almost all of that comes from its design. Its aimless like its subjects, and its even more hopeless. Everyone worth sympathizing with is defined by some sort of trauma, and even some of the despicable people in play have their own traumas too. Whats striking, though, is the approach that sympathetic people here dont fully realize the lasting effects of what theyve gone through. After all, theyre too busy distracting themselves from it.

Brittney, Aaloni, and Autumn live in rural Texas, and its approaching the end of summer. They get drunk and high and hang out with guys, but they dont really do to pass the time. In some way, shape, or form, theyve all been abused. Some of the assailants were other kids, some parents friends. When they talk about other girls rapes, the discussions border on banal. Sure, this documentary will feel distant and impersonal to some, but the truth is that sexual violence is so common that talking about it seems easy. At least, its easier than actually being assaulted.

With Cusp, Isabel Bethencourt & Parker Hill dont try to get personal with their subjects. They know its impossible to see exactly whats going on in these girls minds, and they know itd be false to pretend they can. If Brittney, Aaloni, and Autumn cant confront their own demons for more than 30 seconds at a time, how would two filmmakers be able to? The intent here isnt to show something new. Its to focus on what we dont know. If we happen to come across a pearl of wisdom, thats great, but that simply isnt the core of this experience.

We wade through the padding instead. We get McDonalds, weed, crushed-up pills, and heavy drinking. As for therapy? Theres just one mention of it when Autumn recounts her experience with sexual abuse. Only the people and places that surround these girls are worth discussing in earnest here. Only physical sensations, whether its substance abuse or shooting a gun, truly exist for these three. Everything else is just too fleeting, too repetitive.

Its far from a pleasant experience, but its also a brisk one at just 83 minutes. The problem that comes with this, though, is that Bethencourt & Hill get awfully close at points to defining these girls by their abuse. Just who are Britney, Aaloni, and Autumn aside from this? Its clear they dont have any concrete goals aside from living somewhere else, but aside from one moment where Autumn is painting by herself, what are their hobbies? While Cusp benefits from its distant filmmaking for stretches, it sometimes depersonalizes its subjects by mistake.

Perhaps theres some intent there. After all, the directors fixate on nature, neon, and Americana as much as they do suffering, and it gets to a point where its aesthetics feel like theyre meant to distract the audience like how hedonism distracts these girls. The result isnt perfect, but it manages to feel consistent. Theres no immediate future on display here. Theres also no real hope. To its credit, Cusp doesnt even try to fake a smile.

Cusp premiered at Sundance Film Festival.

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Sundance Review: Cusp Explores the Lives of Texas Teens with Intentional Aimlessness - The Film Stage

A shy, emotionally repressed nurse turns to religion and rechristens herself Maud following a traumatic incident in this creeping horror.

Saint Maud (Cert. 15, 84 mins, available from Monday on DVD/Blu-ray and to download and stream)

Starring: Morfydd Clark, Jennifer Ehle, Lily Frazer

Kate (Morfydd Clark) prays daily, unwavering in her devotion.

I cant shake the feeling that you must have saved me for something greater than this, she rhapsodises to her God in the cramped confines of a sparsely furnished flat.

Maud walks away from the NHS to work in the private sector as a carer to famed American dancer and choreographer Amanda Kohl (Jennifer Ehle), whose halcyon days of hedonism and artistic expression have been cut short by terminal illness.

The combative relationship between Clarks loner and Jennifer Ehles acerbic patient is elegantly distilled in fractious verbal exchanges that begin with a pitying first impression: You must be the loneliest girl Ive ever seen.

Amanda wallows in bitterness and regret in a grand seaside property, with sporadic visits from her lover Carol (Lily Frazer) and a coterie of sinful acolytes.

The ailing dancer channels her poisonous feelings at Maud, who she sarcastically anoints my little saviour.

The pious carer believes she has been chosen to save Amandas blackened soul, however, and the battle between nurse and acid-tongued patient gathers pace as reality and fantasy trade blows in Mauds warped mind.

She scorches herself and inserts pins through the sole inserts of her shoes to experience exquisite waves of pain.

The brightly-lit arcades of a nameless British seaside resort bear witness to a brutal tug of war between faith and fanaticism in writer-director Rose Glasss striking debut.

Infused with the creeping dread of a modern-day horror story, Saint Maud is a mesmerising portrait of religious fervour and sexual awakening, anchored by a bravura central performance from Welsh actress Morfydd Clark as the eponymous tortured soul.

Artfully navigating the central characters twisted psyche with carefully timed spurts of violence, Clarks porcelain features seem to hang in the pervasive darkness of the screen like some ghostly apparition, fixing us with a cold stare that perfectly and chillingly conveys the resolve of a nurse who will follow silent instruction to the bitter and bloody end.

Composer Adam Janota Bzowskis score sets our nerves on edge as much as the stellar performances, leaving almost no time to breathe comfortably between each scene of fateful self-delusion and despair.

And cinematographer Ben Fordesman is a willing accomplice, conjuring scenes of gloomily lit domestic drudgery that suddenly thrum with menace and prickle our skin with fear.

Abandon hope all ye who peer through Glasss distorted lens.

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Film of the Week: Nurse's tale is anything but saintly - Inverness Courier