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Edinburgh Reporter
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Reporter
Desert island delights – literary feasts that feed both mind and soul
What would your Desert Island book be? Mine is 'Family Life – Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing' by Elisabeth Luard, a book I first read when it launched in 1996 but remains as poignant today as it was then. It's a recommendation I've made countless times over the years. In truth, any book by Luard would keep me happily contented and satiated as I plotted my escape route from the island. Her unique ability to weave heartfelt stories with sketches and recipes means I'd never go hungry – in body or spirit. Luard's story begins in 1963 when, at twenty-one, she married Nicholas Luard, co-founder of Private Eye. Within six years, she had four children and moved to a remote valley in Southern Spain. 'Family Life' chronicles the love that holds a family together, told both in sunlight and shadow. No family is immune to tragedy – still less one that lives life to the full. In Francesca, the eldest daughter, we find a true heroine. She tells her own story until that moment when she can tell it no more. Ultimately, it's a mother's tale, one of love without regret – a story of laughter and tears, of joy and sorrow, of life and death. It's unforgettable. However, a new literary contender has recently entered my life. I attended another excellent Toppings Bookshop event celebrating Edinburgh-based writer Caroline Eden's third book in her colour trilogy, 'Green Mountains', following 'Black Sea' and 'Red Sands'. This latest work is split between Armenia and Georgia, tracing Caroline's walks in the South Caucasus, exploring culture, history, religion and politics through the lens of food. I'm rather annoyed I hadn't discovered Eden sooner. Like Luard, she has a remarkable ability to bring countries to life through storytelling. By her own admission, she's no chef, but she has a nose for a good recipe and an ear for extraordinary stories. Throughout the book are what she calls 'Edible Postcards' – recipes that capture the essence of place. I was quick to secure tickets for Toppings' first supper club – an event that sold like hot cakes. I found myself seated at a table nestled among bookshelves with four foodie friends and three strangers, all united by our love of good food. Tables were elegantly set with white cloths, vases of wild spring flowers, and cutlery tied with string adorned with marigolds. Our first edible postcard was an aperitif called Armenian Dawn: apricot, almond essence, brandy and prosecco. As Caroline later explained: 'If an Armenian hands you an apricot, they are, in a way, handing you Armenia.' The apricot is Armenia's national symbol, and this sunrise-coloured delight perfectly launched an evening of revelations. What followed was a delicious feast: Summer tolma with cranberries from Armenia, lobio croquettes from Georgia, courgettes with Georgian spices and walnuts, citrus and walnut salad, potato and cabbage pirozhki, sauerkraut and pickles, finishing with tarragon panna cotta. This somewhat scathing cynic – who typically wouldn't choose a meatless menu – left the evening satisfied in both stomach and mind. The combination of great company, mental stimulation, and fabulous food sent me home with Eden's entire trilogy plus her recent memoir 'Cold Kitchen', written during lockdown when travel ceased. 'Cold Kitchen' celebrates curiosity and feeling at home in the world, opening in Uzbekistan and concluding in Ukraine. Named a 'best summer read' by both the Financial Times and The Observer, I'm sure it will become one of mine as well. Discover other Cooks and Books events at Toppings, Edinburgh: Both Caroline Eden and Elisabeth Luard publish weekly newsletters on Substack – 'Journeys Beyond Borders' every Wednesday and 'Elisabeth Luard's Cookstory' Like this: Like Related
News.com.au
2 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
‘What about the Kingsford Smith Cup horses?': Trainer Joe Pride disappointed Group 1 not rescheduled to Wednesday
Trainer Joe Pride admitted he was 'disappointed' the Group 1 Kingsford Smith Cup wasn't rescheduled for midweek before ruling his elite sprinter out of the $1 million Eagle Farm race on Saturday. The Kingsford Smith Cup and Queensland Derby were added to the Oaks Day program at Eagle Farm after heavy rain last Saturday resulted in the final five races being washed out. But Pride questioned why only the Group 3 Fred Best Classic was moved to the Doomben meeting on Wednesday and not the Kingsford Smith Cup, too. Pride said Private Eye 's preparation would be compromised if the gelding ran first-up in Saturday's Kingsford Smith Cup and then the Group 1 $3 million Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm on June 14. 'I'm not going to run Private Eye in the Kingsford Smith Cup and then back up a week later in the Stradbroke Handicap,'' Pride said. 'I don't want to give him a compromised preparation and have a half-hearted go at two Group 1 races. 'I'm disappointed he has to miss the Kingsford Smith Cup but this way we can give him his best chance in the Stradbroke.'' Pride revealed Private Eye returned to Sydney over the weekend as the gelding preferred his training and stable routine at Warwick Farm. 'We will trial Private Eye on Friday at Rosehill and that will give him four barrier trials before his first-up run so I'm not worried about his fitness,'' Pride said. Private Eye will bypass the Kingsford Smith @EagleFarmRacing this Saturday to concentrate on the Stradbroke with @nashhot on board @ProvenTbreds star is in great shape and will trial this Friday — Pride Racing (@PrideRacing) June 1, 2025 'But I feel they could have run the Kingsford Smith Cup on Wednesday. They have added the Fred Best Classic to the Doomben meeting to give the three-year-olds their best chance of getting to the Stradbroke. 'But that is only for one horse (Fred Best Classic winner) so what about all the Kingsford Smith Cup horses?' Joliestar 's owner Brendan Lindsay has already suggested his brilliant mare was likely to go for a spell after the Kingsford Smith Cup and not stay in training for the Stradbroke. This is more to do with giving Joliestar a long enough break before the spring carnival comes around rather than having to race her twice in seven days. 'I think she's 50-50 for the 'Straddie', I don't think she'll carry on,'' Lindsay said
News.com.au
4 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
Private Eye's little brother King's Secret proves his mettle with a stellar performance at Rosehill Gardens
King's Secret, the younger half-brother to top galloper Private Eye, has started his career in a similar winning vein to his illustrious sibling. Like Private Eye, King's Secret is trained by Joe Pride and he scored his maiden city win in the Toyota Forklifts 3&4YO Benchmark 72 Handicap (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday. While King's Secret took five starts to win in the metropolitan arena, Private Eye did it at start four but he too won his first Saturday city race in his fifth trip to the races. • King's Secret, a three-year-old son of Shalaa (IRE), relished a strongly run race with Power Of The Brave highballing out in front before King's Secret got down to business in the straight, skipping across the heavy surface to score in impressive fashion. 'He travelled sweetly a couple of horses back from the lead and he's really starting to get more professional with every run,' winning jockey Andrew Adkins said. 'He switched right on today, showed good speed, travelled the whole way and when I asked for him, there was plenty there. 'He showed a good turn of foot so that's nice to know that he can handle a wet track like that. It's opens more doors going forward.' King's Secret ($8.50) defeated Codetta ($5.50) by three-quarters-of-a-length with the same margin back to Ellipsis ($4.80) in third. Pride said the win has made him 'have a rethink' initially indicating a spell was most likely for King's Secret but the ease of the win combined with the gelding's ability to handle rain affected ground on the eve of winter has the trainer hedging his bets. It's no secret that King's Secret has a bright future! ðŸ'' He wins at Rosehill for @PrideRacing and Andrew Adkins! @aus_turf_club | @ProvenTbreds â€' SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) May 31, 2025 • Zebra Finch eyes JJ Atkins glory after Rosehill triumph 'I think we'll get him home and make that decision after we see how he comes through the run,' Pride said. 'Either way he's a nice horse going forward so we'll what's best by the horse but it's good to know he's effective on wet tracks.' The $3.80 favourite, Don't Forget Jack blew his chances at the start, sitting down in the barriers as the starter let them go, missing the jump before finishing ninth. King's Secret is the third horse out of the mare Confidential Queen that Pride has trained and the three-year-old's younger sister Confidentiality is showing early signs of following in her older siblings footsteps. 'She's been a really good mare (Confidential Queen) to our stable,' Pride said. 'The first one I got was a horse called Royal Witness, he won $400,000, Private Eye speaks for himself and now King's Secret is doing everything right and looks to have a bright future. 'I just sent their sister Confidentiality to the paddock after a couple of trials and I really like her too.'
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Barry Fantoni obituary
It was the freezing winter of 1963 and snow was lying thick on the ground in London when Barry Fantoni, who has died aged 85 of a heart attack, came to fame by unveiling the Duke of Edinburgh in his underpants at the Woodstock gallery. The near lifesize image of Prince Philip in his smalls, surrounded by a kilt, a polo stick and items of naval uniform, in the style of a child's cut-out doll, caused a sensation after the show was reviewed by the art critic of the Daily Express. Within a week the entire collection of Baz's first one-man show had been sold to an American art dealer. The portrait, an early example of pop art, caught the eye of Richard Ingrams, one of the founders of Private Eye magazine, and opened the door for Baz's 47-year career at the satirical title, during which time he featured in all but 31 of the 1,278 issues. He was a cartoonist, illustrator and member of the jokes team, notably inventing – with Ingrams – the character of EJ Thribb, the magazine's teenage poet-in-residence. During the 60s, he was a face of swinging London – Paul McCartney, Ray Davies, Pete Townshend, Marianne Faithfull and Ralph Steadman would hang out at his home and studio in Clapham, south London. In 1966 he became the host of A Whole Scene Going, a BBC show intended to rival ITV's Ready Steady Go! (for which Baz had designed the set) and Melody Maker named him Top Male TV Celebrity that year. He had his own fanclub. Baz's instinctive understanding of popular culture as a working-class Londoner brought a new relevance to Private Eye, whose founders had met at public school. But he was sensitive to how he was seen and angrily denounced an early history of the magazine for portraying him as a 'Jewish sex-maniac and a half-wit' for highlighting his amorous pursuit of women at the office. By contrast, he never spared the subjects of his cartoons and always aimed to 'wound or mock' the 'miserably corrupt establishment' that were his primary targets. Cartooning was not what he wished to be remembered for, however. 'If I could be honest I would put it at the bottom of the list,' he said when I interviewed him in 2009 and we became friends. He could discuss almost any subject and usually find a joke in it. Away from the Eye, Fantoni worked as a poet, a professional jazz player, a playwright, a painter, a gumshoe detective novelist and a reader of Chinese horoscopes. Poetry was his great passion. 'It is the key feature of my life, more than anything else, more than plays, more than the musicals, more than my jazz, more than Private Eye, more than painting, more than everything. It's the bedrock of my life.' He adopted the persona of Thribb for public poetry readings alongside Roger McGough, whom he had known since playing sax with McGough's band the Scaffold in 1967. Always opening with 'So farewell then' and usually including the line 'That was your catchphrase', Thribb's obituary poems could also be designed to wound or mock, Baz said. 'That's the thing about the catchphrase … that's what really sums you up and you weren't anything more than that.' For a time his own catchphrase was Little Man in a Little Box, the title of the pop song that Davies wrote for him, which he recorded in 1966 and would perform as a support act to the Spencer Davis Group. It was a reference to the age of television – ('You can turn me on, you can switch me off') – but it would be good Thribb material, following Baz's burial in Turin's monumental cemetery. He could find humour in death. It amused him that his mother had 'wryly noted' the irony in his father's death, also from a heart attack, while watching This Is Your Life. Baz was born in Epping, Essex, to where his mother had been evacuated from Stepney, east London, during the second world war. His Italian father, Peter (born Paolo) Fantoni, was an artist, and his Jewish mother, Sarah (known as Maxi, nee Deverell) was a musician, of French and Dutch extraction. Baz grew up in south London and painted landscapes from the roof of the family flat on Brixton Hill. He attended Archbishop Temple school before joining Camberwell School of Art on a scholarship before his 15th birthday. At 18 he was expelled for multiple misdemeanours, including depicting the staff naked in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec. While travelling in France, he contracted tuberculosis. Admitted to hospital on his return to London, he watched fellow patients dying on his ward. That experience, he later explained, was where his work drive came from. He resumed his education at the Slade School of Fine Art and then came the exhibition that brought him to the attention of Ingrams. He went on to have a further six solo exhibitions (including Caricatures by Barry Fantoni at the National Portrait Gallery in 2007) and five joint exhibitions with his father, and took part in 11 group shows. The Eye's fortnightly publishing rhythm allowed him multiple careers. From the mid-1960s he taught at Croydon College of Art, alongside Bridget Riley. He was a diary cartoonist (1983-90) and art critic (1973-77) for the Times, and his caricatures were a fixture in the Listener for 20 years (1968-88). He put on plays in Paris and London. But for Baz there was never enough time. On leaving the Eye in 2010, he told colleagues there was 'still so much else I've got left to do'. Depechism, an art movement which he founded in 2012 after moving to Calais, was emblematic of his need to produce work quickly. The Depechist 'manifesto' decreed that each painting must be completed within a time limit set by the length of the canvas. It seemed like an idea suited to the digital age, but Baz was making a protest, he said, against the 'Saatchiism and Serotaism' of the 'empty' arts establishment, from which he felt alienated. In the same year he published Harry Lipkin PI, a slick novel about 'the world's oldest private detective'. It was set in Miami, even though the author (who did not fly) had never visited the city. Baz married Tessa Reidy in 1972. They had separated by the time he met Katie Dominy, an art and design journalist and editor, who became his partner in 1996 and who survives him. In search of his Italian roots, in 2016 Baz moved with Katie to a riverside flat in Turin, where he produced two memoirs, A Whole Scene Going On (2019) and Breasts As Apples (2023), more pictures, short plays and a collection of brief poems, Poems You May Have Missed (2021), mimicking the style of famous poets. The Italian obsession with ice-cream and national tendency to talk noisily were things he complained of, often loudly and in public. In 2022 he spent months in hospital, critically ill with heart problems, but somehow he came back to life and returned to his projects. 'I have a huge pile of work ahead,' he told me in an email last month. However, in the time-honoured phrasing of Private Eye editors: 'That's enough Barry – Ed.' Barry Ernest Fantoni, artist and writer, born 28 February 1940; died 20 May 2025
News.com.au
27-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Glamour mare Joliestar has drawn a horror gate for Group 1 Kingsford Smith Cup
Glamour mare Joliestar has drawn gate 13 of 14 for Saturday's Group 1 Kingsford Smith Cup (1300m) at Eagle Farm. The Chris Waller-trained Group 1 Newmarket winner was the pre draw favourite for the $1m feature but is expected to ease after landing the horror draw. The barrier draw didn't prove much kinder to former The Everest hero Giga Kick either, the Clayton Douglas-trained star set to leave barrier 10 for his Eagle Farm debut. Grand Queensland campaigner Rothfire, which finished a narrow second to Sunshine In Paris in the Doomben 10,000 last start, has drawn barrier five, while Benedetta, which finished fourth in the race, will exit barrier six. Ageless Sydney warrior Private Eye has drawn barrier seven following a sharp barrier trial on Monday. Racenet iQ members get full access to our Pro Tips service, where Greg and our team of professional punters provide daily tips with fully transparent return on investment statistics. SUBSCRIBE NOW and start punting like a pro! The barrier draw for the Group 1 Queensland Derby (2400m) didn't prove much kinder to pre-draw favourites King Of Thunder and Belle Detelle which will exit barriers 14 and 21 (before emergencies) respectively. Firm Agreement, which finished a distant second to Aeliana in the ATC Derby last month, has drawn barrier six with Nash Rawiller set to ride. 1 FIRM AGREEMENT Annabel & Rob Archibald Nash Rawiller 6 57kg 2 IMPERIALIST (NZ) Chris Waller 15 57kg 3 STATUARIO Emma-Lee & David Browne John Allen 5 57kg 4 KING OF THUNDER (NZ) John O'Shea & Tom Charlton Mark Zahra 14 57kg 5 BEAU DAZZLER (NZ) Tony & Maddysen Sears Jag Guthmann-Chester 8 57kg 6 LAVALIER James Cummings Ms Jamie Melham 11 57kg 7 POLITELY DUN Danny O'Brien Jordan Childs 22 57kg 8 DEEP FOCUS (NZ) Paul Shailer Michael Rodd 18 57kg 9 OUR BENEFACTOR (NZ) Bevan Laming Noel Callow 7 57kg 10 MAISON LOUIS (NZ) John O'Shea & Tom Charlton Ben Melham 4 57kg 11 SCINTILLANTE (NZ) Cliff Brown 19 57kg 12 SAINT EMILION Ciaron Maher Tim Clark 12 57kg 13 PARTY CRASHER (NZ) Michael Hickmott Craig Williams 1 57kg 14 ROGAN (NZ) Cliff Brown 20 57kg 15 EXISTENTIAL BOB (NZ) Chris Waller 13 57kg 16 FEMMINILE Phillip Stokes Blake Shinn 9 55kg 17 BELLE DETELLE Chris Waller 21 55kg 18 CHASE YOUR DREAMS (NZ) Ben, Will & JD Hayes 16 55kg 19e ECLAIR ENCORE (JPN) Kris Lees Andrew Mallyon 10 55kg 20e THE MUFFIN MAN Charlotte Littlefield Ethan Brown 17 57kg 21e LIBERTY PARK (NZ) Chris Waller 23 57kg 22e PRINCE LEVI William Kropp 2 57kg 23e SAN JOSE BOY Jack Bruce 3 57kg GROUP 1 KINGSFORD SMITH CUP (1300M) 1 GIGA KICK Clayton Douglas Mark Zahra 10 59kg 2 PRIVATE EYE Joseph Pride Nash Rawiller 7 59kg 3 ROTHFIRE Robert Heathcote Tim Clark 5 59kg 4 GOLDEN MILE James Cummings Jason Collett 14 59kg 5 ZARASTRO Tony Gollan Ms Angela Jones 9 59kg 6 PAYLINE Chris & Corey Munce Tyler Schiller 12 59kg 7 LIBERTAD Annabel & Rob Archibald Jamie Mott 8 59kg 8 RISE AT DAWN (NZ) Ben, Will & JD Hayes Blake Shinn 1 59kg 9 DEMOCRACY MANIFEST Chris Waller Zac Lloyd 2 59kg 10 JOLIESTAR Chris Waller James McDonald 13 57kg 11 KIMOCHI Gary Portelli Craig Williams 3 57kg 12 BENEDETTA Jason Warren Ms Jamie Melham 6 57kg
