
Cocktail of the week: Bar des Prés' margarithai – recipe
Serves 1
For the infusion
15g lemongrass, chopped into 1cm pieces
750ml tequila blanco – we use Volcan
For the drink40ml lemongrass-infused tequila (see above and method)20ml mezcal – we use Casamigos10ml agave syrup
20ml fresh lime juice
5 fresh coriander leavesHawaiian black salt, to rim the glass (optional)1 stick lemongrass, to garnish
Put the chopped lemongrass in a clean jar, add the tequila, seal tightly and leave to infuse for 24 hours (if you prefer, make it with less tequila, in which case reduce the amount of lemongrass accordingly). Fine strain into a clean jar, then seal and store.
To build the drink, measure all the liquids into a shaker filled with ice, add the coriander leaves and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass – rim it with black salt first, if you like – garnish with a stick of lemongrass and serve.
Sascha Angelucci, bar manager, Bar des Prés, London W1

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Edinburgh Live
5 days ago
- Edinburgh Live
BBC Antiques Roadshow guest pulls face after whopping value of 'beautiful' bronze despite mistake
The video will auto-play soon 8 Cancel Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Get the latest Edinburgh Live breaking news on WhatsApp WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow. An Antiques Roadshow guest was beaming after receiving mixed news regarding his inherited bronzes. The popular BBC daytime show visited the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh for another episode, with expert Cristian Beadman on hand to meet guests. One such visitor was a man who brought along two "dramatic" Russian bronzes, which Beadman felt embodied "Mother Russia". The owner explained why he favoured the Cossack bronze, saying: "There's a lot of family history behind it. My great-grandfather ran a cotton mill in St Petersburg. "In the early 20th Century, there were many industrial strikes and he was compelled in 1905 to intervene in a dispute between the workers and management over working hours. "The usual way of resolving disputes in those days was to send the Cossacks in. "They would typically force the workers into submission. But in this case, he decided that wasn't the right approach. "He established a workers' council to mediate and restore the workers' rights." Beadman, pointing to the bronze, interjected: "And here we have the plaque along the front that says 'You did without them!'" (Image: BBC) "So this is from the very grateful workforce. "It was. So when he retired in 1907, he was given that," the guest confirmed. The expert read the inscription on the back, which stated: "Presented to Joseph Hadfield, your great-grandfather. Esquire by the Office and Hospital of the Nevsky Cotton Mills, St Petersburg, June 1907.' "What a wonderful bit of family history. "As you know, it's a mounted Cossack and the original was cast by a man called Eugene Lanceray. He was Franco-Russian. Hugely popular. "This, I would probably describe as a late 19th Century cast and it's a very wonderful thing." When discussing the second sculpture, the guest confessed his limited knowledge, only aware that it was passed down from his father who inherited it from his mother. Beadman added: "So you know it's Russian. It is by a very, very good sculptor called Nikolai Lieberich, hugely respected. "The thing that he was most appreciated for, believe it or not, was the texture and the finish that he could achieve with depictions of wild animals. "And here we have this wonderful example of exactly that, the bear's fur." However, Beadman had to deliver some unfortunate news, noting: "They're both quite shiny, I can't help noticing. Are you a keen polisher?" "I was last weekend," the guest chuckled. (Image: BBC) The expert advised, "It's not necessarily a good thing to do with antique bronzes. "It takes away the original patina which does sadly affect the value." Next, the expert delivered his valuation, beginning with the Cossack bronze, which he estimated would fetch between £2,000 and £4,000 at auction. But disappointedly he remarked: 'If it weren't so highly polished, you could have doubled those figures.' It was a different story for the second of the two bronzes though: 'The Lieberich is again quite highly polished, so I think that one at auction is only £20,000 to £40,000.' The guest pulled a face as he heard the whopping value and then chuckled. 'Thank you very much indeed', he grinned as Beadman stated: 'Beautiful things.' Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.


The Guardian
05-06-2025
- The Guardian
‘People were repressed into silence': the Spanish artist creating a visual memory of fascism's horrors
The map of Paco Roca's mind, a landscape of memory and loss, unfolds across the walls of an exhibition hall in Madrid, inviting visitors to acquaint themselves with the bittersweet geographies that have shaped the work of one of Spain's best-known graphic artists. Roca, whose comics have explored such varied themes as Francoist reprisals, the exiled Spanish republicans who helped liberate Paris from the Nazis, family histories and the depredations of Alzheimer's, is the subject of a new show called Memory: An Emotional Journey Through the Comics of Paco Roca. Staged as part of a year-long programme of events to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Franco and Spain's subsequent return to democracy, the exhibition looks at how the 56-year-old artist has recovered, preserved and shared memories and testimonies. 'The idea was to make it all look like an encyclopaedia or a set of Victorian maps because, as the end of the day, it's an atlas – a collection of maps that chronicle the journey of creating a comic,' said Roca. 'There are three panels about memory: historical memory; memory and identity; and family memory. The maps try to show what's involved in the creation of any artistic work, whether it's a comic or a film or a novel.' Given the subject matter and Roca's own approach to trekking after the past, the peripatetic, cartographical and non-linear nature of the exhibition seemed only fitting. Its four murals, 19 annotated strips and dozens of sketches, photos and reference points – from lighthouses and hot-air balloons to Jules Verne, Gustave Doré and Hergé – form part of a meandering trail. 'The author never goes in a straight line from the initial idea to the final result, trying to do things as efficiently as possible,' he said. 'That's what AI might do. The author is after an emotional tour.' Although memory is the thread that runs through all Roca's work, some of his most famous journeys have led him into the still controversial realms of historical memory. His most recent book, The Abyss of Forgetting, co-written with the journalist Rodrigo Terrasa, is about a woman's struggle to find remains of her father, who was murdered after the Spanish civil war ended. 'Reconstructing the testimonies of people who couldn't talk about things when they were happening – for different reasons – is a creative and personal challenge,' he said. 'People were repressed into silence during the dictatorship and they couldn't talk about the tragedies in their lives for 40 years. And it's even complicated in democracy because as soon as somebody talks about something that happened, you get these voices saying: 'Come on! What do you want to remember all that for?'' Roca is also driven to use those testimonies to create a visual memory where none exist. 'Unlike what happened after the second world war in Europe, where there were visual records of the horror – the first thing the allies did after liberating the extermination camps was take photos of them and film them, so that only a handful of idiots can deny the horrors of fascism – there wasn't a visual memory in Spain,' he said. 'We don't have photos of the prisons and the executions and the repression and the mass graves. It can be really hard to draw because you often don't get a lot of detail from the testimonies because they're inherited memories, passed from parents to their children. But trying to contribute to the creation of this visual memory of that horror is really important to me. Hearing a testimony isn't the same as seeing it drawn.' Elsewhere in the exhibition, Roca reflects on how he has used his own family history to delve into Spain's past – and on how those stories have ended up becoming something more universal. 'The thing that really interested me about my family and its past is that they're totally normal people whose early lives were marked by the misery and the hunger of the postwar period,' he said. 'But the books I've written about them have been published in a lot of countries, and that makes you realise that they're not just everyday stories about Spain; they're also stories about grief and memory and nostalgia.' Questions about how memory shapes us recur in the section that examines recollection and identity. As well as looking at how age and disease 'can wipe both our memories and our identities', it features Marjane Satrapi, whose Woman, Life, Freedom – a collective work by 17 Iranian and international comic book artists, including Roca – showed how women have defended their identities amid the repression of the Iranian regime. Roca is well aware that sections of the Spanish right are unhappy with the notion of a year of celebrations to mark the end of the dictator. He also knows that some have accused Spain's socialist-led government – whose democratic memory ministry is organising the exhibition at the Instituto Cervantes – of playing politics with the past. But then political polarisation, he added, was hardly a problem unique to Spain. 'In Germany, you have parties that are questioning things that everyone had thought had been settled and you have these nationalist movements erupting in Europe and the US and you have [Javier] Milei attacking historical memory in Argentina,' said Roca. 'It's a bad time for society, but it allows authors to reflect on this and to find stories that had been consigned to oblivion.' And that, said the artist, was what it was all about: the odd individual trying to give the voices of the past a decent, if belated, hearing. It can sometimes be a lonely business – and solitude is another of the exhibition's themes. Roca pointed to a glass-topped cabinet that held an old pencil drawing of a boy in jeans and a T-shirt crouching over a desk. 'I found this sketch that my drawing teacher did of me in 1980,' he said. 'I'm still in that same position, alone and hunched over a piece of paper.'


Daily Mirror
06-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle snubbed rare royal title for Archie over one 'fear'
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's first-born child Prince Archie turns six today, but he would have been given a special title had it not been for one issue that "bothered" his parents The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, reportedly declined to give a rare royal title to their son Prince Archie due to worries about potential bullying or unfortunate nicknames. Prince Archie, who is celebrating his sixth birthday today, was nearly given the title of Earl of Dumbarton, a title that has been dormant since the mid-1700s. However, an insider revealed that both Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were hesitant to use the Scottish noble title, fearing it could lead to mockery and name-calling. Speaking to The Telegraph, an insider claimed: "They didn't like the idea of Archie being called the Earl of Dumbarton because it began with the word 'dumb' [and] they were worried about how that might look." Another source added: "It wasn't just Meghan who pointed out the potential pitfalls, it also bothered Harry." The Collins Dictionary defines 'dumb' as an adjective used to describe someone who is "stupid or foolish". The Earl of Dumbarton title was first established in the Peerage of Scotland in March 1675. It was given to George Douglas, son of the Marquess of Douglas and younger brother of the Earl of Selkirk, in recognition of his service during the Franco-Dutch War, reports the Express. Lord Dumbarton was also known as Lord Douglas of Ettrick. He was married to Anne Douglas, the first Countess of Dumbarton, who was the sister of Catherine Fitzroy, Duchess of Northumberland. After the death of their only son, the unmarried second Earl, both titles became extinct in January 1749. The title would not see the light of day until May 2018 – 269 years and four months later – when the late Queen Elizabeth II revived it as one of the two subsidiary titles for Prince Harry when he married Meghan. However, when the couple stepped back from their Royal duties, they agreed to stop using the HRH (Her/His Royal Highness) title, but retained their titles as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The couple lost the use of these titles when they ceased being working royals in 2020 and relocated first to Canada, then to the US. While the agreement didn't strip them of their titles, it did limit how they could be used. Talk about their titles came as Meghan recently came under fire for using her HRH title to give gifts to an American businesswoman. During an appearance on the Jamie Kern Lima podcast, the Duchess was seen to give her host a gift basket with a card adorning the words: "With Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex" – a move which was dismissed by Royal experts as "pompous". Jamie revealed that Meghan had lifted her spirits during a stressful period by delivering some ice cream and "home made strawberry sauce".