Andrew Lee Jones was a black man convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl. On July 22, 1991, he was executed in the electric chair at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Amicus ALJ claim there was a possibility he was innocent, and they are certain he was not given a fair trial. Amicus ALJ does not campaign for the abolition of the death penalty; they focus on what they term ‘front line’ work by working on individual cases. Amicus ALJ intern, Haroulla Theocharous, is based in a New Orleans firm. She became interested in the scheme after studying a Law degree at Queen Mary, University of London, ‘Ever since I studied Constitutional Rights in the USA as a module at university I became interested in the death penalty and wanted to experience first-hand what it would be like to work on capital punishment cases,’ she said.

The death penalty is the most divisive aspect of the US legal system. It is of course divisive because of its continued usage, a division which is then exacerbated by the inherent discrimination in its use and cases of miscarriages of justice. According to research by Amnesty International the race of the victim is the most powerful factor in deciding the fate of the convict. The majority of executed prisoners were convicted of killing white victims, although about half of all homicide victims are black. A 2007 study by Yale University concluded that black defendants are sentenced to death at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the victim was white. By sourcing UK lawyers as interns Amicus is able to widen the pool of resources available to defence attorneys. In this way, they can assist poorer inmates (regardless of race) who cannot afford the legal assistance they need.

The death penalty was abolished in the UK in 1969 but the Privy Council in London is the final court of appeal for many Caribbean countries that retain the death penalty. This means UK lawyers have received training on many of the same issues that pertain to the death penalty in the US. Haroulla qualified as a lawyer in the UK in January 2011. Amicus ALJ does not require prospective interns to be opposed to the death penalty, but a spokesperson for the charity pointed out that considering the nature of the job most applicants have this position.

Amicus doesn’t attract the criticism from victim’s families or politicians that many anti-death penalty lobby groups do because they do not campaign nor have any political stance. Their case-by-case approach shelters them from the wider political discourse surrounding the death penalty. But despite this, witnessing this perceived manipulation of justice was very difficult for Haroulla to deal with, ‘Since commencing my work in the US, I feel completely appalled by the system. It is highly politicised as district judges and prosecutors are elected. Race and social class determine whether someone is more likely to get a death sentence as opposed to a life sentence. Also, getting to know the clients on a personal level and learning about the background to their cases has also showed me that things are not always as black and white as the media or prosecutor would assert.’

“There have been times when I had really had to stop myself from being overwhelmed by things I have read or heard about cases. It has also been really shocking to hear racist comments being made openly by people, especially after living somewhere as culturally diverse as London.”

The work of an Amicus ALJ intern ranges from conducting research for legal briefs, daily phone calls to inmates and visiting clients on death row. It also involves investigation work and speaking with witnesses in the case. None of this is light-weight and the hardest part of the job for Haroulla is the responsibility of truly understanding what’s at stake, ‘I always try to make the visits as positive as possible for the clients, as they may not have another visit for a while. The only difficulty is at the end of the visit when you are working on their cases, as you are reminded that they are on death row and the importance of the work you are involved in. Whether a particular client lives or dies is largely determined by how successful their attorney is in dealing with their case,’ she says.

It must be emphasised, however, that an intern’s level of responsibility will depend their experience and the firm they are placed with; Haroulla was already a trained lawyer when she joined the scheme, ‘The attorneys I work for have been extremely supportive but at the same time they have given me a lot of independence and trust. My first week involved a trip to Louisiana State Penitentiary to have two three-hour visits with two of our clients on death row. It’s amazing the amount of trust that is placed on you to get things done and to talk freely to clients alone. I am very fortunate to have been placed at a firm with attorneys that are really passionate about the work they do.’

Is it hard meeting the clients, knowing what they have been convicted of and knowing what their fate could be? ‘Everyone has been extremely friendly and polite. There are never any awkward silences; you find that when someone is locked up in a cell and has no contact with the outside world they will use any opportunity they can get to talk to someone about their life. They have been particularly interested in finding out about what England is like as a lot of clients have never travelled outside the US.’ I tried to broach the subject of how the inmates themselves feel about what might happen to them, but Haroulla was unable to answer without breaching client confidentiality.

Despite miscarriages of justice, death row is not full of innocents. I asked Haroulla how she  feels about the people she works with and the crimes they have committed, ‘The firm deals with a variety of cases ranging from innocence cases to intellectual disability cases. There are always two sides to a story and even though no crime is justifiable, working on the cases allows you to see the other side of the story. The media in the US tends to label all prisoners on death row as ‘bad’ or ‘evil’ when the reality is very different. Getting to know the clients on a personal level makes it hard to be judgmental about the situation they have found themselves in. Working in this area of law has taught me that no facts in any case are as straightforward as the prosecutors would have us believe.’

So if not the death penalty, what should the sentence be? How should these people be treated? ‘It is difficult to give a straightforward answer about what I think a sentence should be. I believe that the death penalty should be abolished but whether someone should be given a life sentence or the option of parole should depend on the individual facts of the case, irrespective of their race or the race of the victim. I think the act of putting someone to death is cruel and inhumane and there is no way to reverse it in the event of error. If it is decided that they should receive a life sentence with no chance of parole then I believe that the prison system should be regulated more closely so that they treat all prisoners fairly. There have been many cases of bad treatment in prisons in the media such as that of Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, who have been in solitary confinement for over 30 years. I don’t believe there are enough checks and controls on state prisons to ensure the welfare of prisoners.’

It hasn’t always been easy adjusting to life in the southern states, attitudes to law and justice have been a culture shock, ‘There have been times when I had really had to stop myself from being overwhelmed by things I have read or heard about cases. It has also been really shocking to hear racist comments being made openly by people, especially after living somewhere as culturally diverse as London,’ says Haroulla. Despite this she loves the vibrancy and the rich musical culture of New Orleans. Her internship will finish in July and she is considering whether she wants to extend it. As for her plans for the future, she is still deciding whether to try to pass the bar in the US or whether to return to the UK and try working in the criminal law field. Whichever course she takes, her time with Amicus ALJ will have given her invaluable practical experience and a profound insight into the American legal system’s understanding of human rights.

Contributing Writer: Tess De La Mare

Even before you enter the fair ground themed exhibition, a selection of heels – from the crazily high ballerinas bedecked in pink sparkle to the military-inspired duo complete with epaulettes and gold trim – swing suggestively off brightly striped hula hoops, suspended down the centre of the museum’s winding staircase. It was here that I fell for a phenomenal printed pair of peep toe gladiator sandals resplendent in primary colours and the whisper of geometric disco.

Once you get past the darkly lit entrance and wall of shoe blocs, you enter the main space with carousel and spot lit plinths housing examples of Louboutin’s life work. They’re all there, the almost garish techni-colour display not nearly loud enough to silence the shoes that sit on it. Feathers, red leather, bows to accentuate the daintiest of ankles (and the chunkiest), 90’s Perspex mules, naughty ‘Big Lips’ boots, coquettish kitten heels in pastel shades, meshed sandals that rise to the thigh.

Like the perfect millefeuille, the collection is made up of the lightest of layers. The first glance is superficial; lipstick red, Indian blue, monochrome, the studs, zips and spikes. The second compels you to see the underlying intelligence; the perfectly arched forms, the cultural, fun-drenched references from Guinness to mackerel to men’s ties.  The third, forth, fifth glances, the life story, the short films, push you past the toes encrusted with jewels, and force you to respect the man who merged the science of sculpture with the fickle whims of women everywhere, and turned them into a red-soled empire. Then, just when you think Louboutin is glamoured out, a 3D Dita Von Teese starts dancing and frivolity is restored…

The Christian Louboutin Retrospecitve at The Design Museum will run until 9^th July 2012.

Other Fashion-centric London Exhibitions in 2012

The Victoria and Albert Museum will reopen its fashion galleries with an exhibition called Ballgowns: BritishGlamoursince 1950. Running from 19 May 2012 – 26 January 2013, the exhibition will display beautiful ball gowns, red carpet evening dresses and catwalk showstoppers, as well as more than sixty designs for social events such as private parties, royal balls, state occasions and opening nights.

Fifty Years of James Bond Style at The Barbican from the 6^th July to the 5^th September 2012 will display lavish screen looks by Hollywood costume designers and the biggest names on the fashion block including Armani, Cavalli, Tom Ford, Givenchy, Gucci, Prada and Versace.

Contributing Writer: Lucy Self

One rainy Tuesday evening, taking a friend along for the ride, I decided to find out. The rules were straightforward, hit as many Soho ‘small plates’ eateries as possible, partake in one drink and a couple of dishes in each, and see how far we got before time or money (£30) run out.

We start at Copita, tucked away on D’Arblay Street, a sleek space with cool hanging lights, shiny tiled walls, high stalls and fittingly dark-eyed bar men. Arriving at 5.35pm (hoping to get in before the rush) we find it sadly (but unsurprisingly) empty.

Unperturbed, we order a glass of house white (£3) and peruse the menu. Happily crunching some salty dried broad beans and toasted maize (£2) and smearing chunks of the pleasingly chewy bread (£2) in peppery olive oil, we wait for pea, fresh cheese and truffle croquets. They’re plump and crisp, with a sweet, vivid green centre and a steal at £2.95.

Next stop, Duck Soup – a few roads east on Dean Street. The restaurant (a tiny room taken up largely by the bar at which diners can perch, and four small tables) is half full. The hum of jazz from the record player and shabby chic interior give it a casual, ‘speakeasy’ ambience, though sadly this is not reflected in the wine prices. A 125 ml glass of house white (a cloudy liquid that tastes part cider, part vinegar) costs £4.30. The daily changing menu hand scrawled on coloured paper is cute and its contents are appealing.

Dragging my eyes away from a delicious sounding (but too expensive at £7) crab and artichoke dish, I settle for pancetta, broad beans and ricotta (£4); a perfect mélange of salty nuggets, sweet beans and creamy, tangy cheese – all piled on a slice of toasted sour dough. We also order some wickedly moorish chiprones (small squid), lightly coated in a chilli and fennel flecked batter.

We arrive at 10 Greek Street at 7.30. Perfect timing as the attractive restaurant is almost full, with only one table left in the restaurant and a couple of stalls at the bar (it opened in February and the buzz is obviously yet to wear off).

Opting for the bar facing the open kitchen, we’re immediately greeted by a cheery waiter, a plate of amazingly fresh bread and tap water housed in an old milk bottle – all charming, all free. Money running low, we settle on another glass of house wine, this time rose (£2.75), and blow the last of the budget on a couple of the smaller plates. A perfect steak tartare prettily garnished with a delicate quails egg, thin disk of potato and a scattering of capers (£8), and an intensely meaty slab of rabbit, pork and foie gras terrine, with a dollop of stunning piccalilli (£8).

Three restaurants in three hours and £31.51 spent (just £1.51 over budget) – thus making the Soho small plates trail a success. Clearly there were flaws in the plan (starting in an empty Copita was depressing in an OAP-early-bird-special-kind-of-way) and there are definitely certain ‘rules’ to keep mind. Drinking the crappy wine (and not be embarrassed in requesting it); scanning the menu for the cheapest options; being cunning with time; allowing for hidden service charges; and learning to say firmly ‘no, that is all’ when your waiter presses you to order another glass of wine/plate of food.

Yet for all of this, it turned out to be one of the best dining experiences I’ve had in ages. Being creative with menu choices meant sampling things I wouldn’t normally order and getting some pleasant surprises. Sticking to one glass per establishment meant sipping wine, not downing it. And, by keeping to a smaller amount, it became a realistically priced jaunt that can be repeated when you don’t fancy committing one restaurant or one dish. Of course, you could save yourself the bother – possibly spend less money with less of a military operation attached. But really, where’s the fun in that…

Contributing Writer: Lucy Self

It’s a brilliant film: subtle and delicate without being too frilly around the edges. The story charts the fate of our young hero Julio (Diego Noguera) as he struggles his way through life and love. His timid college romance with inscrutable depressive Emilia (Nathalia Galgani) kicks off when he, in a bid to impress her, pretends to have read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. A few years down the line, Julio’s feeling like just as much of a fraud in his relatively bland present-day fling with neighbour Blanca (Trinidad Gonzales). He’s convinced her that he’s been employed by a great writer to type up his latest novel, but secretly he’s writing his own, a novel all about his relationship with Emilia, the girl he’s never been able to forget.

Bonsái has a brilliant opening line:  ‘At the end of this film, Emilia dies and Julio remains alone.’ Why did you pick that line to start off the film?

I think that in a way it tells the audience that it is not just a story that is about to be told, but a story about storytelling – or a film about storytelling. It puts you in a position where you want to know how you’re going to get there.

It really is the intimate journey of one man. We have these two times and we have to spot the difference between them. We have to fill in the gaps because there are so many things that are untold between those two times.

There’s that repeated refrain of ‘blah blah blah.’ Even when Julio and Emilia are talking it feels like a lot is being left unsaid.

They’re young. They’re insecure. They’re in a special moment, it’s late nineties post-dictatorship. It’s a very lonely time, politics is over so basically you have no references all of a sudden. Rebellion was the eighties for us. So the nineties was like, ‘Right, let’s get over this now. We have to focus on success. Everybody’s got to find their own individual way. That’s it, the party’s over. Now you continue.’ That’s pretty much the feeling of that time. And that was really lonely, in comparison to the experience of being 20 ten years earlier in Chile. Ten years earlier in Chile you were in the street with fifty thousand people, you know?

These are people who are alone. These people are relying on books, they haven’t read them so they have to pretend they have. They want to be special, they’re trying not to fall into cliché. So they’re kind of finding their own ways of saying things, of expressing their feelings. They end up in this position where even these codes that they’ve invented have become established, for themselves.

There’s an interesting play on the creative process in the film. When you were adapting the novel, did you feel a lot of responsibility to respect what Alejandro [Zambra] wanted you to do with it?

My first impulse was to stay more or less faithful to what we had there, but it didn’t really work. In the novel, the time is linear – it always goes towards the future. I’m sure that many things have got lost, because Bonsái the novel is such a special novel. But at the same time, the film is so strongly my film – it takes place in my home town, and it has my grandmother in it, and it has some stuff that comes from my friends that I put in the mouth of the characters. So it is and it isn’t the novel, and beyond all those differences I think there is a connection – a spiritual connection between the book and the film.

How would you describe the film industry in Chile today?

I would say it’s very lively, it’s a very special moment. Creatively, it’s an exciting time. During the dictatorship the film industry nearly stopped in Chile after having been really strong in the late 60s/ early 70s. That’s the time where Raúl Ruiz came out, Miguel Littín, Patricio Guzman – people that became big names. And then during the dictatorship, most filmmakers had to leave, the ones who stayed had a really hard time. And so the whole thing started almost from scratch in the nineties, by 2000 it was becoming a bit more consolidated but really it’s become like a steady thing in the last seven years or so.

When I was little, during Pinochet time in Chile, in Valdivia there was only one TV station. And every afternoon they played two movies. So between, like, 2 and 6, there were two films on television. And I watched that every day. There was stuff coming in to that mix, you were watching pirates, Westerns, whatever, and then in the middle you had Werner Herzog, Hal Ashby, Peter Bogdanovich. I was watching that, and many of my generation were watching that too. It was not intended, but I think many of the people who are making films who are more or less my age in Chile have a subconscious influence that comes from those afternoons.

How have different countries reacted to the film?

When I was in Japan, people in Japan were interested in discussing the philosophical aspect behind bonsais and the film. Some people from Eastern Europe, have pointed to the post-dictatorship feeling in the film which is not obvious, which to me is very discreet. And I think, mostly – there are exceptions – but mostly people relate to the film from whatever is dear to them. People who are into literature, who are literature students, they’re connected to that experience if they are from Brazil, from India, from the States, whatever. People who are into the musical aspect of the film like the rock music. Some people are into the romantic stuff. It obviously crosses through cultural barriers, somehow.

And finally – have you read Proust?

Umm… I have.

But have you read all of Proust?

…No. I gave it a go when I was 20 and I was at University. I read up to the third book. I didn’t finish it, though. In France everyone tells me that when they don’t really have the patience to read the whole thing, they read the first one, then the last one – so you get the idea, you know.

Contributing Writer: Avalon Lyndon

Bonsái is a film about love, life and literature, a tilted hat to youthful pretension, sexual awakenings and intellectual discoveries. The film follows the hapless Julio (Diego Noguera) as he tries to make sense of the world around him and the women in it. Flitting from his college days in Valdivia with the melancholic, kholed-up Emilia (Nathalia Galgani) to his present-day fling with a next-door-neighbour in Santiago, the narrative swings from heavy, all-encompassing, young love to casual, almost uncaring modern-day companionship. From selfish, youthful obsession to give-a-shit adulthood, Bonsái is the story of a man who never truly knows who he is or what he wants.

Present-day Julio, an erstwhile literature student, finds himself commissioned by world-famous author Gazmuri to type up his newest novel. But when he is unceremoniously dropped from the job, Julio runs with the opportunity. Instead of typing up Gazmuri’s novel, he begins to write his own, passing it off to his girlfriend as the great writer’s newest work. But the story he writes and the characters he invents are nothing but ghosts from his past – hazily-recalled memories of his first great love.

The film, adapted from the Aléjandro Zambra novel of the same name, riffs on the ideas of time lost and regained. The spectre of Marcel Proust’s intimidating behemoth of a novel, In Search of Lost Time, hangs over Jiménez’s film as it does Zambra’s novel. It infiltrates its plot, its characters, their preoccupations and their affectations. The opening scenes transport us to a classroom, a literature lesson in Valdivia. ‘Put up your hand,’ says the teacher, ‘if you’ve read Proust.’ A few eager fingers shoot up among the desks, and a crowd of rather hesitant fraudsters follows in their wake. Julio is the last one to raise his hand. He hasn’t read Proust. But Emilia has – or so she claims. So when the two meet at a party, it’s an awkward exchange about a book he’s never read that begins the most important time of Julio’s life.

Julio and Emilia are Chile’s post-dictatorship generation, frustrated by a desire to rebel with nothing to fight back against. They’re not quite sure what they stand for. Passionate but disaffected, they look to the literary greats for inspiration – whether they find it or not is another story. They’re the country’s post-Pinochet come-down, faltering and unsure, still modelling themselves on past masters. Julio, for example, can’t shake the hold Gazmuri has over him – he writes in classroom exercise books with a fountain pen, mimicking the great novelist in the hope of nurturing his own creativity. He’s constantly putting on an act, trying to fool everyone – including himself – that’s he’s the real deal. But it’ll take more than a strategically placed teacup stain and a little smudged ash on a lined page to convince the world of that.

Jiménez does a fantastic job of lining up quirky comedy and meandering melancholy side-by-side. There are moments when you will genuine laugh out loud, and there are points where you’ll clap your hand to your forehead in despair. He slots some absolutely beautiful shots in amongst the crowd – a pair of hands entangled on bright green moss, Emilia stood stock-still under the shower head, clutching a cup of tea. The sex scenes are slow, intimate – flesh against flesh under a peachy, soft light. There’s no eyes-down prudishness here, and the film is all the better for it.

‘Blah blah blah.’ This is the line Julio and Emilia are constantly repeating, whispering it to each other in the bedroom lamplight, sighing it as they roll their eyes on paved street corners. Bonsái is a film about people who struggle to find the words to express themselves. Don’t go expecting guns, explosions and flashy costumes – although there is some fantastic knitwear on show, if that’s your kind of thing. Undeniably sweet but with an awkward acerbic edge, Bonsái is one of those films that doesn’t come along every day. Beautifully shot, perfectly observed and with some fantastically fragile, birdlike performances, Bonsái is a rare treat.

UK Release: 30th March 2012

Contributing Writer: Avalon Lyndon

Chibundu Onuzo is defending the protagonist in her debut novel, The Spider King’s Daughter. She sits opposite me in an airy delicatessen in London Bridge, a fork dancing in her hand, her youthful face animated. She’s supposed to be eating a plate of mushroom pasta, but after I suggest her story of friendship across Nigeria’s economic lines cannot really be a friendship when the rich man’s daughter, Abike, insists on referring to the book’s other central character as The Hawker, denying him an identity beyond his poverty, Chibundu launches an earnest defence.

‘She was raised in a very unhappy home. I applaud Abike for all her humanity,’ she insists.

Chibundu is softly spoken and self-effacing. There can’t be many 21-year-old university students who find themselves juggling essay deadlines with promotion for a published novel, and there are certainly no others who can claim to be the youngest female writer ever signed by the venerated publishing house, Faber and Faber.

‘Theoretically there’s more than enough time,’ Chibundu, whose name means God is life, says with a wry smile, ‘There are 24 hours in a day. If I was a good, organised person, I could do everything and even take up hockey or something.’

It is a typical response from the young author, a mild self-depreciation used to counter any suggestion that her achievements are extraordinary. I’m not convinced. After all it must take a certain amount of focus and a prodigious amount of talent to secure an agent on the strength of three chapters then land yourself a two-book deal at 19. The subsequent two years of manuscript revisions were done alongside a history degree at King’s College, and now, in her final year she’s simultaneously working on her sophomore novel.

‘When Ben Okri won the Booker prize in 1991…’ she muses, getting the Booker year so dead-on I know she must have considered the prestigious award with her own name on it, ‘he must have felt a little lonely because he was one of very few African contemporary authors writing internationally. Now there are so many.’

When does she find time to write, I wonder. ‘My days are upside down,’ she admits, ‘I can write until 5am. Obviously that doesn’t work when I have lectures but you don’t get the same quality of silence during the day. At 2am it’s like you’re the only person in the world.’

Despite her amiable demeanour I imagine it must have taken some tenacious persuasion for her parents to agree to her history degree, a subject usually considered about as useful as horse husbandry by Nigerian parents.

She laughs, a hearty sound that peppers our conversation, and nods in agreement. ‘Luckily for me I’m the youngest, they were just like,’ she switches from her lightly accented English to a heavier Nigerian vernacular, ‘…go to university, get a degree and hurry up. We don’t care what you do, you can do nail cutting studies. Just go to school and come out and let us go into our retirement.’

With her older siblings already working in law, finance and engineering, her parents, both doctors, probably decided three out of four was good enough.

They likely also noted their youngest child’s ambitious streak – ‘I started my first novel when I was 10. I wrote 70 pages. When I was 14 I tried a short story collection.’ – and realised it wouldn’t matter what she studied. After all, successful author is just another objective on a long list. Ultimately she’d like to work in politics or social development, ‘I haven’t decided if it would be more effective to work outside government…” not to mention the singing interest she’d also like to explore along the way.

‘I never thought of myself as black until I came to the UK. In Nigeria we use tribe to differentiate – to create artificial differentiations I think. I don’t mind being a black author; I’m black, I’m Nigerian. It’s in the nature of people to look for ways to classify.’

Chibundu first came to Britain to attend a private boarding school at 14, a familiar trajectory for the children of Nigeria’s upper classes. I ask about the issue of class and wealth in Nigeria, a theme that underpins her novel.

Her seventeen-year-old creation Abike lives in a sprawling mansion, the favourite child of wealthy businessman, Mr Johnson, a man with his hands in every pie, (hence the title). On the opposite end of the spectrum is the young street hawker who one day sells Abike an ice cream, and changes the path of both their lives. Would these two really meet? Could they have a relationship in Lagos, a city where the gap between rich and poor is a yawning chasm?

‘Yes!’ Chibundu is adamant, her hands emphasising points as she talks. ‘In Nigeria we talk to each other more. Strangers strike up conversations.’ She refers to an anecdote described by author Colin Grant at the Black Book Swap about a colleague at the BBC who doesn’t see or acknowledge the staff that cleans their offices. ‘In Nigeria that wouldn’t happen, the cleaner would say, “Good morning Oga,” he’d ask, “How is the family?” there’d be that interaction.’ She goes further arguing Nigeria doesn’t have a class system at all. ‘We call them levels. The levels are fluid, you can always move up or down.’

The delicatessen has grown steadily busier around us and I pull out my final questions. I admire her hair and wonder at the reaction in Nigeria, a country that only seems to appreciate the Afro on black Americans. She laughs again, ‘people think it’s a wig,’ she says bemused, ‘they forget this is the way God made our hair.’

What about identity? ‘I never thought of myself as black until I came to the UK. In Nigeria we use tribe to differentiate – to create artificial differentiations I think. I don’t mind being a black author; I’m black, I’m Nigerian. It’s in the nature of people to look for ways to classify.’

Her favourite childhood books? Interestingly she grew up with the same pool of imported Western classics as Nigerian children growing up in the 60s and 70s -The Famous Five, Mallory Towers and later Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, David Copperfield and The Count of Monte Cristo.

Her eyes light up when she mentions Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, though she was only inspired to read it once she’d moved to Britain. ‘I just had this thought in my mind that Nigerian fiction would be very dull. I read it in one sitting. And I thought, “this book is amazing, I’ve been missing out.”’ From there she discovered Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Sefi Atta.

‘I met Chimamanda  – she was very nice,’ she says in that endearing, off-hand way that I imagine must become habitual when extraordinary things form the regular wallpaper of your life, ‘I mentioned the book, she said yeah, she’d heard about it.’

Chibundu joins a growing community of African writers being lauded on the international stage. Writers, who, like Achebe did a generation ago, are telling African stories on their own terms. ‘When Ben Okri won the Booker prize in 1991…’ she muses, getting the Booker year so dead-on I know she must have considered the prestigious award with her own name on it, ‘he must have felt a little lonely because he was one of very few African contemporary authors writing internationally. Now there are so many.’ Indeed, so she can rest assured she won’t feel at all lonely when she gets hers.

The Spider Kings Daughter
Chibundu Onuzo
Faber & Faber

Contributing Writer: Folashade Lapite

Half-Peruvian Morales has been testing out his dishes on Londoners for the past year, hosting a series of supper clubs and pop ups. It all started, he says, with his twitter account as tried to discover if ‘anyone cared for Peruvian food like me.’ He clearly found a few followers, hence this permanent culinary leap on sight of former bistro Cafe Emm in Frith Street, which opened in early March.

Ceviche – a form of cold-cooking seafood in lime, tiger’s milk and chilli into tangy deliciousness – is one of Peru’s most famous dishes. I had yet to experience it or any Peruvian cuisine for that matter, until I visited the restaurant for lunch last week. Despite not being a raw fish fan, the staple dish ‘Don Ceviche’ (there are eight types of Ceviche on the menu) was a highlight – chunks of fresh and zesty sea bass, which tasted deceptively ‘cooked’, and pleasingly healthy. Morales promised that ‘with Peruvian food there is love at first bite’ and after munching on some Yuccas (fried cassava) and Causa Mar (creamy squid, prawns and avocado on a potato cake) – both of which managed to taste familiar but entirely new – I couldn’t agree with him more.

The interior is split into two areas: a bar with stools where diners can watch the cocktail action, leading through to a larger space with mixed-height tables, dim lighting, exposed brick and a smattering of bright green, Peruvian posters and other ‘authentic’ artefacts. I loved the distressed dresser at the back, housing a collection of oversized jars containing macerados (fruit infused pisco).

Our extremely attentive waiter (staff here are as charming as they are good-looking in a sexy Latin American way) suggested we start with a cocktail. The idea of drinking egg made me squeamish about trying their already notorious Pisco Sour, but the Pasión De Cevich – a blend of pisco, ginger, prickly pear liquor, passion fruit and honey – went down happily enough. The enthusiasm for bringing this grape brandy found in Peru and Chile to the London masses is clear, Morales chose the barman for being a ‘Pisco obsessive who knows the heritage from working and living with Pisco.’ Morales explained that the Pisco Punch is a recipe being brought back to Europe for the first time in 100 years.

The menu, devised by Morales and his chef Alejandro Bello, is the result, he says, of ‘travelling the length of Peru to find the best recipes,’ and, I suspect, tweaking them to make them appealing to their London audience. Diners are advised to order three or four dishes per person and share, making it perfect for a Soho obsessed with small plates. High on the list of ‘must orders’ are the Anticuchos, skewers of marinated meat and fish, particularly the braised octopus. Another unusual but mouth dampening dish was the Arroz con Pato – confit of duck on a pile of fantastically tasty, bright green rice (the result of being cooked in Guinness and coriander).

The most fun however, came with dessert. We got childishly excited over the sweet potato mini doughnuts and fought with spoons over the chocolate gateaux, which tasted simultaneously of heaven and mango. It was then that I felt like I started to get Morales’ mission with Ceviche. To give us philistine English a full-of-fun taste of Peruvian cuisine, in a way that we can understand.

Ceviche
17 Frith Street, London, W1D 4RG

Contributing Writer: Lucy Self
Photography: Paul Winch Furness

Admittedly, I am an art novice; so much of my review is based on the emotion Freud’s work evoked rather than his technique and the history behind the work. This I left the tour guide to explain to myself, and the other, probably more knowledgeable, members of the press, all eager to view the renowned artists work.

Freud’s first work, the first of 130 paintings, dates back to 1940, when the German born painter studied at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at eighteen years old. The painting depicts Cedric Morris, Freud’s tutor during his time at college. It is known that Morris had a huge influence on Freud’s work. Although still only a young man, his work was already beginning to get noticed and he was encouraged to paint more by Sir Kenneth Clarke, the director of art at the National Portrait Gallery at the time, which made the exhibition even more poignant.

Freud’s work in his early years is fascinating. The precision of each brush stroke is breath-taking as well as the surrealist theme running through them, with people, plants and animals in unusual juxtapositions. ‘Man with feather’ caught me as being strangely fascinating. It is the earliest self-portrait in the exhibition dating back to 1943. Freud paints himself holding a feather and on the ground behind him there are quite a few mysterious looking shapes. In the background there are two shadowy figures. One is of a man wearing a hat and another is of a beaked bird. Freud never revealed what they meant but this extraordinary surrealist addition captured my attention.

Moving through the exhibition you notice Freud’s style evolving as he began to experiment with different techniques such as chiaroscuro. Freud’s exploration of light and dark is most evident in the early portraits of his first wife. ‘Girl With A Dog’ shows Kitty sitting on a bare mattress, pressed up against wall paneling with a grey blanket as her only backdrop. Her breast is exposed and beneath it lays a Bull Terrier with its muzzle in her lap. The painting shows the very fine and meticulous brush strokes of his early work, and also begins to illustrate Freud’s obsession with painting what he called ‘complete portrait’ or the liberated figure.

As the journey through Freud’s life progresses his paintings become slightly stranger. ‘Reflection with Two Children’ struck me as dark and bizarre with its odd spatial representation being accomplished with a mirror on the floor. The peculiar angle gives Freud a supreme authority. He dominates the foreground, leaving little room for his children who appear in the bottom corner and seem totally oblivious to their father who is painted as a giant figure.

Most interesting was the way Freud showcased the paintings of his mother. This would have been too intimate a subject matter for most painters to contemplate, but Freud celebrated it as a bonding experience, a way of spending time with a woman who he loved and knew was getting older. He painted his mother Lucie in 1970, the year her husband Ernst died, and in the following years to come, showcasing her depression during her period of mourning.

The more Freud painted the more he became passionate with painting the nude form or as he described it the ‘complete portrait’.  Walking round the exhibition what becomes clear in his work is his interest in the light on naked flesh.

Freud’s friendship with the famous Leigh Bowery produced some great works. The performance artist posed for him in the nude, which allowed him to perfect the ‘complete portrait’. These paintings where unusual in that they portrayed Bowery without the costumes, body piercings and trappings he was known for, but rather focused on him in his natural form. This coupled with Bowery’s weird and wonderful positions, directly owing to his size and supple nature, resulted in some ornate and ambitious paintings.

It is remarkable how Freud, even towards the end of his life, did not become set in his ways. If consistent in anything it was change, even in his eighties. The paintings ‘Naked Portrait with Red Chair’, ‘Flora with Blue Toenails’ and ‘Naked Solicitor’ all are prime examples of how Freud was still not done tweaking his own style – each one so different in method – keeping his work fresh and exciting.

The exhibition culminates with paintings from Freud in his eighties, a period in which he became most energetic by painting everyday. Freud’s unspoken thoughts about getting older are probably most poignant in ‘Self Portrait, Reflection’ in which he depicts himself holding a blue scarf like a noose round his head. The guide told us that Freud used the impasto (applying paint so thickly so that brush strokes can not be seen) building up the colours for his face until he seemingly blends into the paint-encrusted background.

The exhibition also features his last painting, an unfinished piece called ‘Portrait of the Hound’. This is a highly emotional piece as it gives us a glimpse of how this sometimes sheltered artist worked, spiraling the image out from the centre. This painting was something Freud continued to paint until he was too frail to do so. It was found unfinished on his easel when he died.

What I found most interesting, on viewing this exhibition, was that it was in fact a vivid pictorial timeline that documented the changing minutiae of Freud’s life, exploring his entire career and shifting styles from his first painting to the very last. It was an education, for sure, but even a greenhorn art viewer such as myself could not fail to see why many considered Freud to be the most eminent British artist of his time.

Lucian Freud Portraits
National Portrait Gallery
9 February – 27 May 2012

Contributing Writer: Ryan Holmes

So it’s a breath of fresh air to see the return of the BFI Future Film Festival, back at the lovely BFI Southbank for a fifth year. Snuggled in between the BAFTAs and the Oscars, with all their calculated cynicism and over-egged glitz and glamour, the Future Film Festival is dedicated solely to the fresh, innovative ideas of young aspiring filmmakers. The festival boasts a mix of feature films (with Q&As) and awards ceremonies, as well as masterclasses and workshops from some of the industry’s movers and shakers. So if you’re 15-25 and mad on film, you’d be a fool to pass this up.

For the three feature film screenings on offer, the emphasis is squarely on first features. Black Pond, screening on Sunday, is the debut feature from recent Nottingham Uni graduates Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe. This unashamedly dark comedy charting the lives of a suburban family accused of murder stars Simon Amstell and Chris Langham. Lock Stock’s Dexter Fletcher jumps behind the camera for the first time to bring us the gritty Wild Bill on Sunday, which follows a newly-released prisoner as he’s plunged back into reality. The fantastic Eraserhead on Saturday ties the festival in nicely with the BFI’s David Lynch season and is a must-see for any aspiring director. Two of the three feature films are followed by a Q&A with the directors. Since David Lynch is most likely trapped in a red room drinking coffee with a dwarf, he can probably be excused.

For an insight into how to make your very first feature film, a Sunday panel discussion on the topic includes Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe (Black Pond), Debs Patterson (Africa United) and Dave Hawkins (Bound by Blue).

Short films, meanwhile, are the playground where aspiring directors cut their teeth. With a wealth of workshops on offer, aspiring short filmmakers will get a chance to learn the ins-and-outs of funding and production from some of the very best. The Future Film Awards ceremonies, meanwhile, will celebrate the shorts which have really stood out this year. Sam Haire’s hilarious black-and-white Portrait d’un Francais and Bexie Bush’s inspired stop-motion animation Ever Hear a Postman Whistle? are some of the real highlights, while the entrants really are strong across the board.

There’s a host of workshops and masterclasses to get involved in, from Visual FX Masterclass with Ed Hall (currently working on the upcoming James Bond film) to Making Print Work in the Digital Age from the brilliant Little White Lies magazine.

Events like the BFI’s Future Film Festival are what keeps the blood pumping through the British film industry’s veins. While Cameron might see the BFI’s role as encouraging UK producers to make “commercially successful” pictures, he couldn’t be more wrong. Siding with bankable filmmakers who have already proven their Hollywood salt can only stagnate the industry, and it’s clear from what’s on offer here that British independent film has a lot up its sleeve. It’s always heartening to see festivals like this encouraging innovation and inspiration among a brand new generation of filmmakers – filmmakers who are, after all, the future of British cinema. Long may it continue.

BFI 5th Future Film Festival
18th – 19th February 2012
BFI Southbank

Contributing Writer: Avalon Lyndon

On a rainy Friday night in Paris I’m invited to the launch of a new bottle of wine created to be a succinct up-yours to the President of the Republic. ‘FuckS@rkozy’ is the brainchild of 34-year-old vintner PierrePitot , who has plainly expressed his views through one of France’s most iconic exports.

‘Have you spotted the plain-clothed policeman yet?’ he asks gleefully as he hands me a glass of his new Beaujolais. ‘There will be one; Sarkozy is paranoid. Look for the man who isn’t drinking.’ Pitot is a patriot to his core and considers it his civic duty to react to what he terms the ‘absurdity’ of the French president.  Not only that, it is his duty to inspire his fellow countrymen to do the same—and what better way to inspire the French than with a bottle of red?

The product was originally named ‘Sarkozy je te bois’ (Sarkozy I drink you), a pun on the phrase made famous by an enraged teacher in a train station in Marseille: ‘Sarkozy je te vois’ (Sarkozy I see you). Forced to comply with a routine ID check, said teacher was later charged with breach of the peace for repeatedly yelling ‘Sarkozy je te vois’ at the top of his lungs. Greater national security was one of Sarkozy’s key election campaigns, making many French anxious for their privacy and freedom. Pitot soon realised the joke was lost on most people. Whist it’s not so topical, FuckS@rkozy is at least to the point and it isn’t lost on Anglophones either. The label is the work of graphic designer Charlie Hebdo and depicts a man being crushed by a barrel. The face of the cartoon isn’t visible, but the drinker can guess whose arms and legs they’re supposed to be.

I hope that Pitot’s customers are stirred by his new breed of militant viticulture and perhaps the Brits will take inspiration from his actions. Maybe we will soon see Cameron’s a c*%t cupcakes being distributed on the steps of St. Paul’s.

Contributing Writer: Tess De La Mare