Latest news with #Fabergé
Spectator
15-05-2025
- Spectator
Which European country has the largest nanny state?
Across Europe, Nanny's influence is growing: there has been a steady erosion of liberty for those of us who like to eat, drink, vape or smoke. Leading the pack in the 2025 Nanny State Index is Turkey where the state's penchant for control borders on fetishistic, banning vapes outright and taxing alcohol off the scale. Its only saving grace is that so many of its little prohibitions are poorly enforced. Hot on its heels is Lithuania, where the war on fun is fought with puritanical zeal. Alcohol is a particular target, with the drinking age raised to 20 a few years ago and all advertising banned. E-cigarettes are not outlawed entirely but are saddled with such a ludicrously high tax – €6.30 (£5.30) per bottle – that they might as well be. Finland, Hungary and Ireland make up the rest of the top five. In Ireland, cigarettes are priced as if they were Fabergé eggs and the state deems its citizens too feeble-minded to navigate a supermarket without state-issued blinkers.
Winnipeg Free Press
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Author tidies Molly Gray's backstory in Maid series
For the better part of 20 years, Nita Prose was part of the publishing industry, working her way up to vice-president and editorial director of Simon & Schuster Canada. Then Molly Gray entered her life. Prose introduced Molly, maid at the Regency Grand Hotel, to the world in her 2022 mystery novel The Maid, which became a runaway international bestseller. Molly returned in 2023's The Mystery Guest and then in Prose's holiday-themed novella The Mistletoe Mystery in December 2024. DAHLIA KATZ PHOTO Nita Prose's The Maid's Secret is the author's last Molly Gray novel for now. Now Molly's back to unpack another puzzle in The Maid's Secret, published in early April by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada. Prose launches the novel today at McNally Robinson Booksellers' Grant Park, where she'll be joined in conversation by Rachel Lagacé of CTV Morning Live. In The Maid's Secret, Molly takes a box of her late Gran's trinkets to a filming of Hidden Treasures, an Antiques Roadshow-like TV show filming at the Regency Grand. Among the items is a decorative golden egg revealed to be a Fabergé prototype worth millions. When Molly decides to auction it off, the precious item goes missing — and handwritten notes threatening Molly's life begin to appear as she tries to crack the case of who poached her egg. 'When the Russian empire fell after the revolution in 1918, most of the Fabergé eggs that were given as Easter gifts (by the czars) made their way to collections all over the world to museums and private collections, but several of them remain missing to this day — and that has always fascinated me,' says Prose from Toronto. For her latest Maid novel, Prose took on a new challenge — incorporating the voice of Molly's grandmother, Gran, into the narrative and providing a dual storyline that converges near the book's end. The Maid's Secret alternates between Molly's exploits and diary entries from Gran that detail her younger years, the egg's origins and some of Molly's backstory. Finding Gran's voice proved more of a challenge for Prose than writing Molly's narrative. 'I think authors always get one gift from the gods, and Molly's voice was my gift — she just descended from the heavens fully formed. I understood her. I didn't have to work hard to find that voice,' Prose says. 'With Gran's voice, it took a bit for me to trust myself at the beginning. The 'Write what you know' adage was really in my mind, and can a 50-something-year-old really write a voice that's much older? As it turns out, I feel like I did her justice.' Fans of the Maid books might be verklempt that Prose says The Maid's Secret is the last Molly Gray book — at least for the foreseeable future. 'I'll never say never, but I kind of do see this as the end. Maybe in 10 years, I'll have an idea for another Molly adventure, but at the moment, I really wanted to draw the series to a close and to give people that sense of finality,' she says. The Maid's Secret 'I don't feel like these characters, and particularly Molly, are mine anymore. I've been so lucky to have readers embrace Molly wholly and completely — she belongs to them now, and they're taking such good care of her.' The good news: a Maid movie is likely in the cards. 'My hope is that we'll see it onscreen in the coming years,' Prose says. Prose is already at work on a new novel — a mystery less cosy than the Molly Gray books, but one she hopes fans will enjoy just as much as her Maid books. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. 'It's a novel about landscape and wilderness and how the land and a place can both heal and harm. And it's a novel about the unbreakable bond between sisters,' she says of the book, which is set in Ontario cottage country and features an older protagonist. In the meantime, Prose is excited to get in front of fans and talk about all things Molly Gray. 'Writing is such a lonely, self-consuming activity. It challenges you in so many ways. I love that it's a lonely pursuit,' she says. 'But I also love the inverse — when it comes time to share the book, I'm really eager for feedback, for connection. Stories are, after all, meant to be shared, and for me, it's very meaningful to hear readers' responses.' Ben SigurdsonLiterary editor, drinks writer Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press's literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben. In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press's editing team before being posted online or published in print. It's part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Dark Fairy Tale of a Young Princess and Her Horrible Husband
For too long, Queen Victoria's ghost has been allowed to claim the nickname 'Grandmama of Europe,' owing to the countless descendants who became queens, princes, dukes and czarinas. But according to Helen Rappaport, in her serious but sprightly 'The Rebel Romanov, ' that honorific should really go to Victoria's own grandmama, Auguste of Saxe-Coburg. Auguste, a duchess from a cash-strapped German principality, is the reason both Victoria and her husband, Albert, who was also her first cousin, exist and therefore, Elizabeth and Philip (both Victoria's great-great-grandchildren). At one point, this ducal Mrs. Bennet even tried to fob a daughter off on Napoleon. But it's another of Auguste's daughters, Juliane, who is the subject of Rappaport's latest book. Initially, Julie, as she was known, promised to be Auguste's greatest matchmaking triumph. At 14, Julie married Grand Duke Konstantin of Russia at the bidding of his grandmother, Catherine the Great. This was in the late 18th century, but even then, courtiers remarked with distaste at what the author calls 'trafficking in princesses' north to Russia. Actual wine flowed from fountains during the couple's 1796 wedding festivities, and if all went according to plan, Konstantin and Julie would rule over Constantinople — once Catherine took it. But Julie's new husband was, to mix regimes, a rotten Fabergé egg. Even Empress Catherine described Konstantin as 'a Fury' and 'a little Vulcan.' Parsing the euphemistic language of the day, Rappaport presents a truly frightening portrait of a marriage. When the military-obsessed Konstantin wasn't drilling his human toy soldiers, throwing kittens in ovens or shooting rats out of cannons, he was terrorizing Julie. Rappaport quotes one account in which Konstantin, knowing his wife's fear of mice, released a box of them into a room and locked Julie inside, laughing 'most heartily at his spouse's hoppings and jumpings, and screams and entreaties,' while letting his officers peep through the keyhole. He 'dropped' Julie into a huge blue Chinese vase and fired his pistol at it 'to his wife's utter terror.' References are made to Konstantin's violent outbursts, philandering, cruelty — and the venereal diseases he likely spread to his already sickly young wife. So it comes as a relief when, five years after their marriage, Julie leaves Russia for her native Germany. But it's also the point at which her story loses steam. From a narrative standpoint, it's hard to compete with the glittering grotesquerie of the imperial Russian court. Take, for example, Catherine the Great's lying in state. Her body had been ineptly embalmed and 'soon appeared quite disfigured: Her hands, eyes and the lower parts of her face were black, blue and yellow' and 'all the riches that covered her corpse served only to augment the horror it inspired.' Back home in Germany, the financially stressed Saxe-Coburgs worried about the cost of boarding their errant daughter and her eight-carriage-long entourage. In a letter to her financial adviser, Auguste described Julie as 'the catastrophe from the north.' Rappaport spends mercifully little time explaining the ever-shifting alliances and reconfigurations of various German principalities. The same cannot be said for the ink she devotes to tracking Julie's geographic progressions from spa to spa over decades. Julie lived a long life as a princess in self-imposed exile, bearing several children, likely by men she employed as managers-cum-father figures, although details are murky. She loved music, amassing a sophisticated and varied collection of scores, and developed the romantic gardens at her estate in Switzerland. While a pall of scandal and sadness hung about Julie and her household, the Saxe-Coburgs remained a tight-knit bunch. Queen Victoria harbored a fascination with her intriguing aunt and, while the two met only a couple of times, Victoria adorned her residences with pictures of Julie and her siblings. She commissioned a portrait of Julie at age 68, which she described as 'an indescribably like and beautiful picture of Aunt Julia.' That portrait hangs today at Highgrove, King Charles's country house, and is said to be 'a particular favorite' of his. Another, of Julie as a teenager, hangs in William and Kate's Kensington Palace apartments. Aunt Julie is all around. And yet her voice is barely audible. We learn of Julie's physical whereabouts as a perma-health-spa guest, but Rappaport fails to breach her inner world. Few letters of Julie's survive (she was a dedicated letter-burner, as were her relatives), and those that do 'are largely unrevealing,' Rappaport writes, 'full of stream-of-consciousness chatter that switches constantly from French to German and back again, about family weddings, birthdays and deaths.' Julie supposedly kept a diary in Russia, but it has never been found. This is a story of one kind of suffering: that of a noble girl sacrificed on the altar of family ambition, and the malaise that sets in when one has titles, ranks, plenty — if never quite enough — money, but no clear role. She floats like a specter through her own biography, unreal and unknowable.
Buzz Feed
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
People Are Using This Easter Egg Generator To Make Designs That Are Somehow Both Chaotic And Beautiful
Hot Topic 🔥 Full coverage and conversation on the BuzzFeed Arcade Easter lovers rejoice! As a spring baby who has had a birthday cake shaped like a bunny more times than I care to admit, I've cracked the code on some ultimate festive fun: a custom Easter Egg image generator! Whether you want to design an egg fit for a Fabergé museum or one that looks like it's been on a chocolate bender, this tool has you covered. Get ready to scramble some pixels and hatch your wackiest designs – it's egg-straordinary! All trademarks, logos, brand names, names, likeness, characters, and other personal indicia (collectively, "attributes") are the property of their respective owners. Use of these attributes does not imply endorsement, affiliation, or sponsorship from the respective owners.
Telegraph
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Lee Child: ‘I've been a pothead since 1969'
Lee Child shouldn't be here. The master of the killer thriller is supposed to be 'a retired guy', enjoying the fruits of his 28-year writing career: the four homes, the lifetime earnings he estimates at $200 million, the Renoir and the Fabergé watch that 'cost more than my Jaguar'. After writing 24 bestselling novels featuring his all-American 'knight errant' Jack Reacher, he handed the baton over to his novelist brother Andrew, 15 years his junior – working on four books together before leaving the youngest Child to it. So why is the 70-year-old sitting in this hotel suite in London's Soho talking to me? 'It's not really working out great,' he quips of his self-inflicted redundancy. In fact, the Jack Reacher franchise – based on the character he came up with in anger in 1995 after being let go from Granada TV – is not contracting, but expanding. First, there was the mixed blessing of Tom Cruise as a supposedly 6ft 5in, 17-stone ex-military police major in two films. Then there is Prime Video's Reacher, the third series of which – adapted from novel seven, Persuader – he is here dutifully to promote, having been remunerated three times 'for the IP [intellectual property]' as executive producer and as consultant. This season, Reacher finds himself inside a vast criminal enterprise while trying to rescue an undercover informant whose time is running out. The creators of the show, starring Alan Ritchson, are also working on a spin-off, Neagley, focusing on the protagonist's right-hand woman, played by Maria Sten. 'They want both halves of the year to be somehow dominated by the Reacherverse,' says Child of the drifter hailed by his literary agent, Darley Anderson, as the 'James Bond of the 21st century'. Child no longer spends each September 1 – the date he sat down to begin his first instalment, Killing Floor – launching into a new book, but celebrates 'not starting'. Otherwise, his lifestyle sounds remarkably unchanged. He used to drink up to 36 coffees a day, smoke 20 Camels and light up a joint while reclining on a 9ft sofa, poring over his drafts. 'I mean, I still drink a ridiculous amount of coffee and I've been a pothead since 1969 and so that's never going to change. It hurts my back to sit at a right angle so I love being horizontal. Yeah, it's a great life.' That said, there is one big shift. Child was born Jim Grant in Coventry, the son of housewife Audrey and John, a tax inspector, but had lived in the States for a quarter of a century. Last summer, he started pondering a move back to Blighty 'if it all goes bad in November', explaining he was 'too old and too tired to deal with the tsunami of crap that would be coming our way'. In so doing, he joined a galaxy of celebrities who said they would abandon America were Donald Trump to enter, or re-enter, the White House. Bruce Springsteen talked in vain about Australia, Barbra Streisand considered Canada and Cher joked about Jupiter. However, like his literary avatar, Child is a man of action. 'The morning after the election, I flew back to Britain, and bought a house in the Lake District,' he says, his slender frame – only one inch shorter than Reacher's – nestled in an armchair. 'So that's where I plan to spend most of the next four years.' Has the Trump presidency been worse than he feared? 'Hideous, yeah,' he says with a grimace. 'Hemingway said about bankruptcy, it happens at first gradually and then suddenly, and Britain needs to be vigilant about not letting it happen here.' I wonder, how do we go about that? 'The media has to take a very elevated view of truth over partisanship,' he says in his transatlantic drawl. 'Maybe it's inevitable, maybe we're moving into an era where everybody has their own reality, but the sense of what is real and what isn't seems to have totally disappeared.' Child has already given up his home in the south of France because climate change brought 'North African weather and North African insects'. He says he will also have to sell up his ranch in Wyoming, where he lived a life not dissimilar to that of his 'noble loner'. He now concedes that somewhere that involves a 90-minute round trip to get milk and where it is 'physically impossible to get out of the house because snow has drifted against it 20ft thick' is no place for a septuagenarian. (That leaves his brownstone townhouse in New York and 'winter escape' in Colorado). Yet even during his decades abroad, he never truly left England behind. Both he and his brother are Aston Villa fans, and he regularly named characters after former players. The author, who reads up to 300 books a year, has always been brazenly commercial. He chose his pen name because it is a word that evokes warmth and, alphabetically, sandwiched him on the shelves between the crime titans Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie. But he admits to one costly error. Reacher's proud lack of possessions – Child relished the review that called him 'Sherlock Homeless' – has written off a plethora of sponsorship opportunities, even though a survey once found he was the 'strongest brand in publishing'. He consumes as much caffeine as his creator and there is a Jack Reacher coffee. 'But apart from that, I blew all the marketing opportunities completely,' Child says with a chuckle. What about branded toothbrushes – the only item Reacher carries, apart from his passport? 'Could have a toothbrush, yeah, and people send me them all the time, as a sort of token. Literally, I've got a huge cardboard box full in my office.' He has also received less savoury bathroom products. When he included a verbatim passage he had been emailed by a US soldier in Iraq criticising the US government, readers tore out the page. 'Sometimes it was used as toilet paper and sent to me.' More recently, Reacher has been caught up in the culture wars. Last year, New York magazine said he was 'a glaringly white fantasy' and asked: 'Is it any wonder that Reacher has an entrenched right-wing fanbase?' The Daily Dot website reported that many 'celebrate Reacher's violent retribution as an example of what Trump will do to the libs'. 'They're talking about the psychotic Maga manifestation of right-wing, which is really something completely different,' says Child, who is married with one adult daughter. And he points out that he has had hate mail when Reacher's love interest has been black. 'Is he a white supremacist or is he in favour of mixed-race relationships? They can't have it both ways.' Child developed his pragmatic political instincts while working as transmission controller, and union shop steward, at Granada from 1977 to 1995. Battling mass redundancies, he, Reacher-style, commissioned the cleaners to fish any useful paperwork out of the bins. Among the documents was a psychological profile of Child. 'They called me cynical, and I've run into that many times. The pragmatism is somehow mistaken for cynicism.' What else did it say? 'That I'm stubborn, obstinate and so on, which is absolutely true. There is no human being more stubborn and obstinate than me.' Like all purveyors of 'commercial fiction', Child has absorbed the brickbats of critics – while reportedly shifting one staccato-sentenced novel every nine seconds. But slowly, more and more esteemed fans crept out of the woodwork, from Philip Pullman to Kate Atkinson and Haruki Murakami. 'What page-turners, what prose, what landscapes, what motorways and motels, what mythic dimensions!' gushed Dame Margaret Drabble. 'He does all the things I could never do.' Antonia Fraser is another admirer, but failed to persuade her late husband Harold Pinter, who sneered: 'I cannot understand the mentality of one who is awaiting the next Lee Child.' 'I mean, I don't need Harold Pinter's approval in any way whatsoever,' says Child himself. 'To be an entertainment professional who doesn't understand how parts of the market work is profoundly silly.' The Booker Prize committee understood, inviting him to be a judge in 2020. But is it about time that writers of his ilk were eligible for Bookers or Nobels? 'Nah,' he shrugs. 'It's greedy. We make a fortune compared to those literary guys.' A half-smile forms. 'I'd rather have my sales than their prizes, put it like that.' Season 3 of Reacher premieres on Prime Video on 20 February
