Archive for the ‘Lifestyle’ Category
May 17th, 2012 | 
Author: Story By: by Harold James
German Chancellor Angela Merkel chats with members of her cabinet during the weekly German government cabinet meeting on May 2, 2012 in Berlin, Germany.
Read A Different Opinion Who Hold Power Within The EU
Harold James is the Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies at Princeton University.
When Francois Hollande, the newly elected president of France, arrives today in Berlin for his first meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it will kindle memories of the long history of Franco-German partnership in leading the European Union. In France, it may even trigger the traditional condescension Parisian politicians feel towards their neighbors: The lumbering German economic giant that relies on French diplomatic, military, and nuclear savoir faire to achieve political clout.
Increasingly, however, such sentiments are mere nostalgia. Yes, when the financial crisis broke out in 2007 and 2008, the relationship between France and Germany â and between Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy (or “Merkozy” as they were dubbed) â took its usual place at center stage. But the real story since then has been Germany’s increasing comfort in claiming the spotlight for itself. It is a story that has left a riveted continent guessing what Germany’s ultimate intentions are.
It’s important to point out that this shift has been a long time in coming. It was prefigured by the famous photo from the cemetery at the great World War I battlefield of Verdun, which depicted the massive figure of Chancellor Helmut Kohl holding hands with the diminutive President Francois Mitterand. But what irrevocably altered the balance in the Franco-German pairing was German unification in 1990. Germany’s addition of territories with a new population of some 16 millions upset the almost precise demographic equality of the European area, which until then had contained four large countries with almost the same population and economic size (the other two were politically unstable Italy and politically semi-detached Great Britain). For a time, the implications of the addition were hidden because of the enormous financial cost of rebuilding the eastern German territories, run down by the legacy of catastrophic communist central planning.
But the extent of German power was also masked because of the insistence of that country’s political establishment on acting through multilateral institutions. Germany’s habit of making constant diplomatic reference to the alphabet soup of international organizations â EEC, NATO, WEU, CSCE â even had its own name, Genscherism, after the long-serving German Foreign Minister and co-architect with Kohl of German unification, Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
Given modern Germany’s history as an aggressor, it is perhaps no surprise that foreigners are troubled by the new country’s new assertiveness in imposing harsh austerity conditions on southern Europe.
In that way, the clearest evidence of Germany’s newfound comfort with its power is the language now used by Frau Merkel. Sometimes she addresses the European situation, and the need for austerity to be imposed on southern Europe, with a bluntness of language that reminds of nobody so much as Otto von Bismarck. In May 2010, pleading to the German parliament, the Bundestag, to accept the first Greek rescue package, Merkel explained that “the rules must not be oriented toward the weak, but toward the strong. That is a hard message. But it is an economic necessity.” It had overtones of the Iron Chancellor’s 1862 “iron and blood” speech to the Budget Commission of the Prussian parliament, in which he explained that German unity would be achieved through demonstrations of Prussian strength, not Prussian liberalism. Three wars followed in short order, and German was, indeed, unified.
Given modern Germany’s history as an aggressor, it is perhaps no surprise that foreigners are troubled by the new country’s new assertiveness in imposing harsh austerity conditions on southern Europe. In Greece, radical populist parties of the left and right routinely portray Merkel as a new Hitler. The technocratic prime ministers of Greece and Italy are often portrayed in the media of those countries as German puppets, and French electors have just booted Sarkozy from office in part because of his identification with Merkel. But the dismay about the new Germany is shared even in more rarified circles. Senior British officials and politicians do not hide their frustration with the “bloody Germans.” The Obama administration, meanwhile, is terrified that German insistence on austerity will provoke a new round of financial panic and economic crisis, which would not be confined to Europe, and which might turn the November election against the President.
These anxious observers scrutinize the new European Uberpower’s economic strategy in hopes of gauging its political ambitions. Technical debates about trade balances are thus seen as potential power bids by a new potential hegemon that wants to mould a new world with new rules. Just as Chinese trade and current account surpluses are thought to be discrediting multilateral institutions on a global level, German surpluses are threatening the political institutions that manage the process of European integration. (The German issue looks even more pressing today that that of China, in that China’s surpluses are rapidly shrinking, while the German level is only falling very slightly.) On the global level there is a fear of a new Chinese order, in which China develops patronage relations with a new quasi-empire in Africa and Latin America; and on the European plane, there is fear of a German Europe. Indeed, southern Europeans complain that German fiscal austerity is creating surpluses that come at their expense, that Germany is imposing deflation on the whole of Europe to exert its control over the continent.
Some critics see Europe’s monetary arrangements as the key to a German master plan stretching back decades. The former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, who clashed with Germany in the 1970s over German unwillingness to provide sufficient stimulus to the European economy, recalls a conversation with the most senior German Finance Ministry official, Manfred Lahnstein. Lahnstein told Healey that the idea of a fixed exchange rate arrangement (then called the European Monetary System) was that other European countries, with higher rates of wage increases, would progressively become uncompetitive relative to the German export machine. That would allow Germany’s social democracy to survive, but at the expense of unemployment and political and economic crisis elsewhere in Europe. Healey used this rationale as the explanation of why Britain should never allow itself to be drawn into such a scheme. When â so the conspiracy theory goes â the European Monetary System collapsed in a series of financial crises in the early 1990s, the Germans had a stronger than ever motivation to press ahead with a stronger version of the scheme, monetary union and the creation of the Euro. Germans thus turned multilateralism and Genscherism into a tool for securing German dominance.
But it’s hard to believe that monetary union was simply a disguise for Germany’s lust for power; indeed, if it was, it seems destined to be a rather counter-productive exercise. (To be sure, the same can be said of Germany’s real rapaciousness in the first half of the twentieth century.) German firms may be able to do relatively well catering to demand from the rapidly growing emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East for machine tools, high performance luxury cars, and other engineering products. But it is unlikely that such success can be repeated forever. At some point Germany will face the problem of being a super-competitive economy surrounded and trapped in an impoverished region that is too poor to buy German products. That periphery would also be socially and politically unstable because of the ravages following from mass unemployment and especially from the destruction of the skills and potentials of a generation of young people. As with the German folk tale of Little Red Riding Hood, the greedy wolf is eventually fated to receive his comeuppance.
But imperialistic conspiracy theorizing aside, there is a way to explain what is motivating Germany’s use of power. German attitudes of today are the product of a peculiar postwar success story. When American soldiers and diplomats made the postwar settlement, they believed that German political life had been destroyed because of inadequate constitutional guarantees. Adolf Hitler had used the emergency powers of the Weimar Republic’s federal constitution to destroy the power (which included control of the police) of individual German states, and also to stimulate the economy through monetary inflation. So Germany needed extremely secure bulwarks to secure constitutional and monetary stability. The two creations of the postwar era that have been most successful â and which also are regularly rated in opinion polls as commanding the greatest respect from Germans â are the Federal constitutional Court and the independent central bank, the Bundesbank.
Both the Federal Constitutional Court and the Bundesbank are central to the current situation, and they constrain Merkel’s room for maneuver. The Federal Constitutional Court receives complaints about the political and democratic consequences of European rescue packages, that improperly impose commitments on German states that they have not themselves agreed on. Its ruling in September 2011 upheld the German federal government’s commitment to European rescue mechanisms, but at the same time drew a line, stating that further action would violate the German constitution, by transferring to much sovereignty from German citizens to supranational institutions (such as those created as a way of solving the Eurocrisis.) The Bundesbank and its representatives, meanwhile, have taken a parallel position, based on a strict interpretation of the treaty-based mandate of the European Central Bank. Two German board members left the ECB board after warning that direct purchases of government securities would be a violation of the ECB’s statutes and the Maastricht treaty.
Americans often like to think of themselves as pragmatists: If there is a bad crisis, you need to do what it takes to solve it. But the legacy of the postwar remaking of Germany was a deep commitment to legal rules â that a crisis is precisely when you need to create a workable system. The rather legalistic approach is at the core of the European process, not just of German postwar developments; and its constraints make a quick response to a sudden crisis impossible.
But it bears reminding that not all European states find Merkel’s vigorous defense of the export model problematic. The more dynamic central European states, or the Baltic republics, see in Germany a model for emulation (in the same way as many Asian states based their development model on Japan.) One of the big surprises of recent months was a plea from the Polish Foreign Minister for a stronger and more assertive rather than a weaker Germany.
Current account surpluses are in fact not simply a German phenomenon. Outside the EU, where it is impossible to argue that a kind of artificial currency manipulation is producing the effect of an artificial boost to competitiveness, the surpluses of Norway and Switzerland as a proportion of GDP (respectively estimated at 14.8 and 12.1 percent for 2010) are much higher than that of Germany (5.2 percent). The other Eurozone members with a German type of economy â Austria and the Netherlands â also have current account surpluses. In fact, if an observer looked at Europe ignoring political boundaries, they would see a dynamic area stretching north from the Alps (including not only Austria, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland but also parts of central France and northern Italy) with a powerful tradition of skilled industry and the export of niche products. These areas are where German productivity is not perceived as a threat, but rather as a sign of hope that Europe has a strong role in the world economy.
Still, Germany knows that the resentments against it will persist unless it can devise some enhanced measure of fiscal redistribution on the European level (as there has been between states in the United States since the Great Depression.) Its only realistic option to that end may be to devise some sort of European tax (or even more radically perhaps a European social security regime) that would act as an absorber of regionally specific shocks. An obvious starting point for Europe would be to set some standard limit up to which national debt would be federalized â perhaps the notorious 60 per cent of GDP from the Maastricht convergence criteria, perhaps a lower limit. Debt exceeding that amount would be left to the responsibility of the national states.
Germany’s current muscle flexing should be properly understood as a way to open up the bargaining for such a deal. It resembles, in fact, the position that Virginians took in 1790 in resisting the Hamiltonian assumption of state debts arising out of the war of independence. In the end, Virginia extracted big concessions â a limit to its liability and the moving of the federal capital. The new compact could also be made palatable to German voters, if it were structured in a way that would make the Europeanization of German interests clear. Germans could for instance be given tax incentives to buy assets in southern Europe: Companies could invest and bring in new business practices; households might think about buying some of those empty Spanish houses and apartments.
There should no doubt: Germany is powerful, and Frau Merkel knows it. But the sources â and thus, the uses â of that strength have been misunderstood. It’s not just because of the success of a particular economic model â one strongly driven by export performance â but also because of a constitutional and legal order. None of this translates straightforwardly into political power in the way Merkel’s critics sometimes claim. But observers should not be so surprised that she is trying to remake Europe, however marginally, in her country’s image. Germany’s traditions, after all, have proven successful, and there’s reason to believe they can influence Europe for the better. Merkel’s actions don’t smack of imperialism, then, but of leadership.
Posted in 
By MIKE SIELSKI
Throughout his final weeks at Boston College, Chris Kreider had been so cagey about his future, about whether he would forgo his senior season, turn pro, and join the Rangers as they pursued a Stanley Cup this spring. Would he stay? Would he go? He waited until after BC won the NCAA championship before finally declaring that he was ready to come to New York, yet to see him Monday night was to wonder why there was any question at all.
In his 13th game in the NHL—all of them during this postseason—Kreider set up Dan Girardi’s game-winning goal and added an important insurance goal himself Monday as the Rangers won Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, beating the Devils, 3-0. Game 2 will be Wednesday night, again at Madison Square Garden.
Getty Images
Chris Kreider celebrates his third period goal with teammates Artem Anisimov and Derek Stepan of the New York Rangers.
Kreider now has three goals and two assists, but he’s had far from a perfect postseason, of course. After he committed a mistake in Game 4 of the conference semifinals that led to a go-ahead goal by Washington’s Alex Ovechkin, Rangers coach John Tortorella cut his playing time over the subsequent two games. Kreider said Monday that the mistake remains in the back of his mind, a lesson that he won’t let himself to forget.
“I’m learning some things that are obviously important,” he said. “I made several mistakes tonight, miscues in the defensive zone. I’ll have to look at the [video] tape.”
Whatever footage he reviews, though, will also show his two scoring plays in the third period—a key pair of sequences that allowed the Rangers to withstand the Devils’ dominance over much of the game’s first two stanzas. In making 21 saves to record his second shutout of these playoffs, goaltender Henrik Lundqvist was particularly good in the second period, when he stopped 11 shots, including three in succession from Devils star Zach Parise during a Rangers power play.
Thanks to Lundqvist, the game was still scoreless when Rangers defenseman Michael Del Zotto dumped the puck into the Devils’ zone less than a minute into the third period. Already among the Rangers’ fastest skaters—and their roster includes Carl Hagelin, who won the fastest-skater competition this year at the All-Star Game—Kreider chased down Del Zotto’s clear along the right-wing boards, beating Devils defenseman Marek Zidlicky to the puck. With Zidlicky seemingly affixed to his back, Kreider held him off long enough to tee up a soft drop pass for defenseman Dan Girardi, who blasted a slap shot through a Derek Stepan screen and past Devils goalie Martin Brodeur.
Kreider then doubled the lead with eight minutes to go in the game by using his speed again, this time to free himself in the slot to accept a pass from Artem Anisimov (who later added an empty-net goal) and fire a 25-foot wrist shot past Brodeur.
“I keep telling him, ‘Just stay cocky with that puck,’” Rangers forward Mike Rupp said. “That’s a confident shot, taking it from that far out. He’s a great kid with a good head on his shoulders, but he’s got all the tools.”
During a meeting of the Rangers’ scouting staff a few years ago, according to Gordie Clark, the team’s vice president of player personnel, general manager Glen Sather emphasized the need for NHL franchises to target players with exceptional speed. From scoring to checking to retrieving the puck, swiftness was becoming a treasured commodity in the game, and Sather’s recommendation, Clark said, in part led the Rangers to draft both Hagelin and Kreider.
“I ask my scouts to do so much background checking now because the city can be a monster,” he said, “and we have to make sure when we’re bringing somebody in here that they can handle it.”
For the moment, Kreider appears up to the task, though there was one more small blotch on his otherwise excellent evening. Kreider, who grew up near Boston, learned after the game that the Celtics had lost Game 2 of their playoff series to the Philadelphia 76ers, 82-81. He seemed more disappointed about that news than he was happy about his performance.
“Thanks a lot, man,” he said to the reporter who informed him of the Celtics-Sixers score. “Who took the last shot?”
Write to Mike Sielski at mike.sielski@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared May 15, 2012, on page A26 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Blueshirts Blank New Jersey.
By MELANIE GRAYCE WEST
![[BRUNCHBOX1]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-BP780_BRUNCH_G_20120427201852.jpg)
Byron Smith for The Wall Street Journal
The French toast offered at Empellón
It isn’t always easy to get a prime-time dinner reservation at Empellón Taqueria, the year-old Mexican hot spot in the West Village. But for brunch, the restaurant takes a relaxed tone, perfect for a long meal with friends.
The menu is diverse, but a good start is guacamole ($12) and margaritas. Chilaquiles, a traditional Mexican hangover cure that is typically made from leftovers, eggs and salsa-soaked fried corn-tortilla strips, is dressed up here with meaty maitake mushrooms ($14). Another everyday Mexican breakfast dish, eggs with chorizo, is also made special ($14), as is challah French toast with smoked maple syrup ($13). Get a side of refried beans and tortillas for the table ($5 each).
Byron Smith for The Wall Street Journal
Empellón Taqueria’s Chef de cuisine Alexis Samayoa.
Service on a recent visit was attentive and friendly. Reservations are recommended; try to snag one of the prime window-side seats for people-watching and sunshine. Empellón Cocina, the sister-restaurant in the East Village, also serves brunch.
Empellón Taqueria, 230 West Fourth St. at West 10th St., serves brunch weekends from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; (212) 367-0999.
Write to Melanie Grayce West at melanie.west@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared April 28, 2012, on page A19 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Adding a Dash to Tradition.
The Farm, a restaurant at the heart of the lush Al Barari development just off Emirates Road, had already won me over with its design, location and atmosphere. But could the food live up to that?
As I turned my car into the green tunnel that is the entrance to Al Barari, I was transported away from dusty Dubai and into a subtropical world. The restaurant itself is beautifully light, bright and contemporary, with a terrace at the back overlooking a pond where dragonflies flit about and water features trickle. Somehow, it’s all done in a way that feels natural, not imported.
So it’s a great space to spend a lazy lunch with the girls or a romantic dinner. But there are plenty of restaurants in Dubai that promise a great location and design where the food falls flat (such as a consistently disappointing cafe on Jumeirah Beach Road). Does the Farm suffer from the same?
Thankfully, not at all. The food is fresh, innovative and very well prepared — although, unsurprising from a luxury residential development, comes with a price tag to match. The ingredients aim as far as possible to be organic (making the most of produce grown on site or in the UAE) and ethically sourced, meaning the person who picked the coffee beans in that latte was paid fairly for their labour.
Article continues below
That’s why the menu is on an iPad, the restaurant says — so changes can be easily made to it if, say, artichoke is not available. That would be a shame, because the artichoke and leek soup (Dh30) is a fresh revelation and a wonderful way to start your meal. It’s creamy but light, tangy and feels like a bowlful of goodness. Team it with the fantastic home-baked breads — a selection of them come to the table with fruity olive oil for dipping (loaves are also available to buy in the small shop inside).
Another starter of giant grilled prawns with mango was perfectly cooked, if a little small for the money. You won’t leave hungry if you have a starter and main, with side dishes, though; you’ll feel quite light, although your wallet may do too, especially if you add on the juice drinks such as Passion Breeze (Dh20).
The menu lists main courses by main ingredient, so there are confusingly two items with organic chicken — one that lists it cooked with lemon and rosemary, and other simply titled "organic chicken". It was unclear how it was cooked, except that it came with sweet potato. So we ordered both, and found it was a supreme of chicken — breast with a little bit of wing attached. While it was juicy, if you’re not a fan of chicken breast you’ll have major envy of those with the lemony grilled thigh (Dh80). We added on a mixed salad (Dh30), a large bowl enough for three to share, and red potatoes roasted with more artichokes (Dh28).
Desserts, like all the items on the menu, are home-made from scratch. The brownie wasn’t cooked enough for us — I expect a crisp top and chewiness rather than dense chocolate, but chocoholics would likely adore it. I’d have the cheesecake again, though.
I’d also definitely go back, if only to see how the terrace is going to be summer-proofed — I was told it will be cooled. But the interior is just as pleasant a place to eat, and there are lots more items to try — ribeye steaks, plenty of vegetarian options, and a curry and a pasta of the day. For early risers, there are breakfast options, and the spelt pancakes are a don’t miss.
THE FARM
Where: Al Barari, Emirates Road.
Call 04-3744544
Atmosphere: A new hotspot for Dubai foodies, Jumeirah Janes and healthy-eating mums
Decor: Gentle, feminine modernity — surrounded by gardens.
Must-haves: Artichoke and leek soup, lemon and rosemary grilled chicken thigh, cheesecake
It’s official: Having a purpose in life can actually help you live longer. Apparently those who have one – which could range from something ambitious like scaling Mount Everest to a relatively simple goal like reading a set of books – are likely to live longer than those who don’t, according to researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Ask anybody and they’ll tell you setting a goal is relatively easy. It’s investing the time and effort towards achieving it that’s the tricky part. And it is here that the importance of emotional and mental health is most crucial – it’s no secret that people who are emotionally stable and healthy can tackle life’s challenges, bounce back from adversity and build and maintain strong personal and professional relationships. A healthy mind boosts your mood and helps you savour life to the full.
Also important to your motivation is your physical well-being, because a healthy body promotes a healthy mind.
Recognising the importance of these ideas, Friday asked five experts to suggest ways to have a healthy, wholesome and fulfilling life. Follow their 15 top tips for a better life starting today.
Article continues below
By JEMIMA SISSONS
The French chef talks to The Wall Street Journal Europe about how he starts his weekend.
Daniel Boulud may be Lyon born and bred, but his life is very much based around New York, where he runs eight restaurants and bars, including his eponymous three-Michelin-star establishment on the Upper East Side. Currently, the 57-year-old chef is also opening two restaurants in Montreal and Toronto.
When he isn’t overseeing his eateries in Miami, Palm Beach, London, Beijing and Singapore, he lets off steam racing cars, shooting pheasants in Connecticut and fishing for stone bass in Long Island.
One of his greatest pleasures is spending time with his 23-year-old daughter, Alix, and finishing off the weekend with good friends and a hearty, home-cooked meal. “I will open a good bottle of wine, get a couple of friends around and make it simple, with seasonal ingredients—a crudo of fluke, followed by a simple dish of chicken or pork loin, with mushrooms and snap peas,” he says.
How do you start your weekend?
Usually I work. However, if I am not [working], I like going out with friends. I usually go downtown to the Lower East Side. I love Aldea, run by George Mendes, a young Portuguese chef. He does beautiful renditions of traditional Portuguese dishes in a much more contemporary way, such as baccalà. Or I might go to 15 East and eat Japanese. I was married but now I go with colleagues, or one of my friends who loves good wine, such as Daniel Johnnes, wine director at Daniel. I enjoy sharing a good bottle of Burgundy with him.
How do you spend Saturdays?
I always start the morning with exercise such as pilates, or during the spring, I will go to Central Park and ride a bike—it is far less crowded on Saturdays than Sundays. Then it is often a social day with my daughter. We might go to a museum or visit different neighborhoods. We like to wander around SoHo or Brooklyn, or browse in the galleries in Chelsea. My daughter also likes to educate me. For example, we took a permanent pass at the Metropolitan, so we can go all time. She will go to a private viewing on a Wednesday, where the exhibition is explained, and then takes me on a tour on Saturday and tells me what she has learned.
How about Saturday night?
If I am in New York, I might go to a play or opera. I like theatrical performances with amazing scenery, such as “La Traviata.” I don’t like somber, slow or subdued opera, or I tend to fall asleep. Afterward, I might go to my restaurant Boulud Sud and have a quick bite. I then go for drinks with some friends. I like places that serve interesting cocktails and are private and intimate, such as PDT, Employees Only or Dutch Kills in Queens.
What’s your Sunday morning routine?
I love driving. I recently had an Aston Martin but have just sold it. If I am feeling in the mood, I might go to the Monticello raceway. If I have friends competing, I will watch them. Otherwise, I will race myself if there are days open to the public—usually in a Ferrari, Lotus, or Porsche—but I don’t race to win. Otherwise, I might head to New Jersey and spend the afternoon playing golf. I am a member of Hamilton Farm Golf Club, a beautiful estate an hour away from New York in horse country. My game has been degrading, so I need to work a little harder.
Where else do you escape to?
I might go to Cape Cod and go clam digging, or Bridgehampton or Sag Harbor in Long Island and hang out on the beach. If a friend has a boat, we might go fishing for striped bass, black sea bass or fluke. I sometimes stay with my friend the chef Eric Ripert and we will cook together. It is nice to be lazy and eat and drink all day. We will make something like côte de boeuf together; I am in charge of the vegetables.
I hear you are an avid hunter.
I love to go hunting. I have just been invited to shoot grouse in Scotland. Sometimes I go to Pennsylvania, where we hunt pheasant or woodcock. I have never been able to get any wild turkey, though.
How do you spend time in London?
If I am in London, where I have a restaurant, Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental, I definitely go to visit a gallery or museum such as the Tate. I love to fly through London, walking down streets and getting lost in Mayfair or Knightsbridge, with no purpose.
—Mr. Boulud was speaking with Jemima Sissons.
Write to Jemima Sissons at wsje.weekend@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W12
By NANCY DEWOLF SMITH
Treasure Island
Saturday, May 5 at 7 p.m. on Syfy
What story has withstood the test of time better than Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”? This exotic coming-of-age parable has thrilled readers for nearly 130 years and been filmed dozens of times (counting the movies in various languages since around 1918 and many episodes of television series since the 1950s). Even with all that telling, the latest version of “Treasure Island,” on Syfy this week, stands out as a gem—although some plot changes for the sake of agitprop make it a flawed one.
Shot in dark, stormy Ireland and on the bright seas and sands of Puerto Rico, the movie re-creates the world of seafaring men, including pirates, in such detail that you can almost taste the salt on their cracked lips, feel the sting of the tattoo blade and smell the desperation when the hunt for buried gold becomes a grim battle to survive.
Eddie Izzard stands out as the peg-legged pirate Long John Silver, but the rest of an excellent cast also makes a distinct personality of each character. Toby Regbo plays young Jim Hawkins, the innkeeper’s son whose discovery of a map sets off a long sea voyage from England to find buried treasure on a tropical Island. Elijah Wood, his enormous eyes painted like a peacock’s, is Ben, a castaway who prefers cheese to pearls and holds the final secret to the treasure.
The movie opens with a back story that is not in the novel but a welcome addition. It shows, in explosive detail, how Long John Silver lost his leg. It also puts a face to the old pirate Captain Flint, who is dead in the book but whose malign presence haunts all who knew him. As Flint, Donald Sutherland is scary every second he’s on screen, squinting maliciously through cheeks so puffy that it looks like a Restylane bomb went off under them.
Then the tale begins in its traditional fashion, with Jim’s discovery of the map in the trunk of a dead pirate, Billy Bones (David Harewood), at his mother’s inn. After Jim tells family friend Dr. Livesey (Daniel Mays), the doctor convinces Squire Trelawney (Rupert Penry-Jones) to finance a voyage west by southwest over the sea and to hire Capt. Smollett (Philip Glenister) to command his ship.
Together they set sail, unaware that Long John Silver and some of the crew are former pirates who have long searched for the buried booty. When the ship reaches the island, a pirate mutiny is followed by a series of plots and counterplots, bloody fights and betrayals. Through these Jim learns often painful lessons about trust and loyalty.
Although there is beautiful scenery, “Treasure Island” takes an unflinching look at the hardships of the seafaring life and features genuine tension. After the camp silliness of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the authenticity is refreshing. As for all the stabbing and the like, well, as Long John Silver says, without violence or the threat of it, “other men take what’s yours and they live the life that should be yours.”
For all its gifts, Stevenson’s story was apparently found lacking in revolutionary fervor by the makers of this version, and in some respects it plays out like “Treasure Island” as told by Che Guevara. Squire Trelawney, for instance, is turned into a vile capitalist pig whose greed kills and (nearly) causes prostitution. The new ending, too, is a trite trick and a big disappointment.
But these are small flaws in a picture that is otherwise a treat. And yes, there is some swashbuckling—for them that likes it. The most satisfying line in the movie, in fact, is a sword-waving line yelled by Capt. Smollett at the departing Long John Silver: “The next time I see you, you’d better come bladed-up, man.”
BBC/Masterpiece
Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as Watson in ‘Sherlock.’
***
Sherlock
Sundays at 9 p.m. on PBS
PBS’s 21st-century sleuth “Sherlock” is finally back for a second season, and he’s better than ever. In an introduction to this three-week series, “Masterpiece Mystery” host Alan Cumming explains that in his new incarnation as a modern, youngish man in contemporary England, Sherlock Holmes “has replaced his magnifying glass with the tools of technology, and his powers of deduction have become explosive. His mind has more apps than an iPhone.”
Fortunately for us, the Sherlock who resides at 221B Baker street today is both as fiendishly clever and in some ways even odder than his precursors, and yet more like us because he is so much a man of our times. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch can make Sherlock seem cold—shutting down potential clients with a loud “bor-ing!”—but he’s just as demented as the rest of us when ransacking his apartment for a forbidden pack of cigarettes.
Intricate plots (many updated versions of old favorites), fast pacing and smart, witty writing make “Sherlock” one of the most dazzling confections on TV. Mr. Cumberbatch’s beguiling eyes and talents give his character appeal without compare.
He is ably assisted by Martin Freeman as John Watson, here a former military doctor in Afghanistan who chronicles their exploits in a blog. The two friends are so close that the media speculate they are gay, although only Watson seems to notice, or care. “What in the hell are they implying?” he sputters after reading a description of himself as a “confirmed bachelor.”
But whatever Sherlock is, he is not impervious to the adversary in the first episode, “A Scandal in Belgravia.” Summoned to Buckingham Palace by his brother Mycroft, Sherlock is assigned to reclaim secrets in the cellphone of someone as cunning as he is—a dominatrix who is not only beautiful but, when he first meets her, stark naked.
Although it is he who takes her pulse here, we sense for the first time that his may be capable of racing, too. Their long-distance pas-de-deux seems headed for a terrorist nightmare. Yet its final moments, both participants fully clothed, are thrilling and titillating as only this, best ever, Sherlock can make them.
***
White Heat
Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on BBC America
Also worth watching as it begins is “White Heat,” a six-part BBC America drama that follows a group of seven friends in the U.K. from 1965 to today. The personal and the political will buffet them all as the times change, and after only one episode it’s clear that the more we learn about each of them, the more we will want to know.
A version of this article appeared May 4, 2012, on page D10 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: English Treats for Everyone.
It is like home-made food" said a young Emirati woman after dining at Fanar recently. That’s a big compliment for the restaurant, at Dubai Festival City, which serves up platefuls of Emirati cuisine, an often overlooked style of cooking in the UAE.
Fanar, the colloquial word for lantern, is the first of its kind in Dubai. Previously, Emirati dishes were availableforcatering or delivery — and of course in homes around the country. For expats looking for a taste of local food, a personal invitation was often the only way to try it. Fanar offers dining in, with a wide variety of Emirati dishes in a fascinating atmosphere and captivating interior design, inspired by the houses the pearl divers of old would have lived in, known as tawashe.
Everything in the restaurant seems well-researched and studied to recall a rich culture. From the lanterns dangling from the ceiling to hanging carpets from fake balconies, to a huge cement and plastic tree in the middle of the hosh (the main dining area), to the menu, which is printed on two sides of bamboo fans or mahafa. The entrance of the restaurant, located on the mall’s canal side is another story, duplicating what the front yard of an old house in the sixties of the last century would have looked like. A life-size camel, horse and monkey sit alongside a vintage blue Land Rover.
The menu offers scores of Emirati dishes — salads, soups and fish and meat cooked in a variety of mouth-watering sauces.
Article continues below
Sambosak, the pastry stuffed with several kinds of vegetables, is a must try. It is delicious, crunchy and light.
A highly recommended dish is nadhar mashwi — grilled squid seasoned with special spice. It is served with bread and rice.
The food is well-cooked and light, to the extent that it would be difficult to decide when to stop eating.
Equally difficult would be the decision when dessert time comes. The restaurant offers several types of sweets, so it is a good idea if at least three are ordered, as portions are small. Must-tries include "Bobber mixture" (pumpkin pudding), Khabisah (sauteed flour and molasses mixture) and the Baathith (crumbled dates in roasted flour and butter).
Arabic coffee served in traditional cups or tea served in small glasses adds a pleasant final touch.
Though the majority of the diners are Emiratis, there are many foreigners and expatriates including Arabs, westerners and Asians. The restaurant offers late lunches and dinners in a relaxing atmosphere.
"I don’t feel I am in Dubai," a diner said while enjoying her lunch, in reference to the fast pace of life in the city. "When I go to other restaurants, I feel I am there for eating, and I see people eating quickly and leave. But here, I feel I am relaxed and I see people taking there time in eating and chatting."
Restaurant Promotions
ARMANI hotel
Hashi: Indulge in omakase, the chef’s tasting menu from Dh450 for a four-course menu, with music by the resident DJ from Monday to Friday. 7pm to 11pm.
Phone: 800 276264
Crowne Plaza Dubai
Harvesters Pub: Burger Special: choose from a selection of five different burgers,
priced from Dh59, from May 14 to 20.
Phone: 800 276963
Citymax Bur Dubai
Friday brunch featuring three international cuisines starting from Dh59. Play your favourite songs on the jukebox or enjoy a game of pool. Noon until 4pm.
Phone: 050-1007065
Emirates Golf Club
Le Classique: Saturday brunch featuring live cooking stations and a selection of changing a la carte main courses. Starting at Dh195 and Dh320 inclusive of more than a dozen select beverages. Available from noon until 3.30pm.
Phone: 04-4179999
Ibn Battuta Gate Hotel
Mistral: Daily seafood nights: a selection of the fresh catch of the day and the chef to cooked to your liking. From 7pm-11pm. Priced at Dh180 with unlimited soft drinks or Dh229 including unlimited house beverages.
Phone: 04-4445613
Jumeirah Emirates Towers
ET Sushi: Eat all you can sushi, sashimi and tempura off the conveyer belt. Indulge in Japanese cuisine including seaweed and potato salads, tempura, pickles and miso soup. From 6-7pm, Sunday to Thursday at Dh110.
Phone: 04-3198088
Le Méridien Dubai
M’s Beef Bistro: Cool down with chilled soups. Enjoy chilled gazpacho or green apple and cucumber. From May 11 to 17.
Phone: 04-7022455
Le Royal Méridien Beach Resort
Ossigeno: Chef Marco Lucentini’s three-course dinner menu from May 13 to 31 priced at Dh250. A choice of either tea or coffee is included in this offer.
Phone: 04-3165550
Jumeirah Beach Hotel
Carnevale: Mother’s Day celebration dinner showcasing the Italian tradition. VIP masterclass on May 12 from 11am till 1pm at Beachcombers Garden for Dh100. A la carte menu on May 13 prepared by chef Artemisia. Menu is available as daily special from May 14 until the end of the month.
Phone: 056-6826719
Sheraton Abu Dhabi Hotel
La Mamma: Mother’s day celebration on May 13. Italian chef Andrea Molinari will prepare a four-course menu for Dh165 including a glass of bubbly.
Phone: 02-6773333
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
One of the art world’s most recognizable images, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” sold for a record $119.9 million at auction in New York City. Kelly Crow reports on Lunch Break. Photo: Sotheby’s.
Tobias Meyer, the Sotheby’s auctioneer who commanded Wednesday night’s $119.9 million sale of the 1895 Norwegian icon “The Scream,” was cool as a winter fiord when he slammed the gavel on the most expensive work ever sold at auction. It was only later, at 3 a.m., that the moment got to him.
“The adrenaline is still swooshing around in your veins,” he says, recalling the early-morning hours he spent with eyes wide open in the dark of his Manhattan bedroom. He thought about his father, who in a rare turn traveled to New York from Munich to watch him lead the auction, and he mulled over a career that started with watching auctions as a teen and brought him to the biggest sale of his life.
More
If ever there were a visual counterpoint to the squirming lunatic at the center of Edvard Munch’s masterpiece, it is Mr. Meyer, a 49-year-old Frankfurt native whose gently accented German never rises above a bemused baritone in the Sotheby’s saleroom. At the rostrum, his longish brown locks looking more Euro-chic than messy, he presides over Sotheby’s highest profile U.S. sales.
This week, Mr. Meyer was unflappable during the 12-minute dogfight over “The Scream,” which culminated with a battle between two anonymous phone bidders. “Do not worry,” he told one Sotheby’s specialist when the offerings began to slow. “At $99 million, I have all the time in the world.”
As the sum kept climbing, he took on the pose of a swimmer in a slow crawl, alternating outstretched arms toward bidders to indicate he’d spotted them. Though he avoids preconceived notions of how much a trophy lot will fetch—”you end up disappointed and you lose your footing”—he altered his strategy for “The Scream,” slowing his pace, dropping his voice and introducing the sale as a “major moment.”
The 20-year veteran of Sotheby’s, who also serves as the world-wide head of contemporary art, laid the groundwork ahead of the auction: He knew who the phone clients would be and had jotted in his auctioneer’s book the seats occupied by top collectors. Still, there were surprises, including aggressive bids reaching about $72 million from one man tucked in the middle of the room (that bidder eventually dropped out).
Mr. Meyer says he didn’t panic, even when the action seemed to slow. “When the atmosphere gets very tense, so to speak, I strangely have the reverse mechanism that I become very calm,” he says. “Somebody once said that’s a little bit like a Formula One driver, because they’re in that space and they’re very happy about it and they need to make these split-second decisions.”
Art World Best Sellers
![[SB10001424052702304746604577380432507761496]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/P1-BG010_SCREAM_DV_20120502200147.jpg)
The Munch Museum/The Munch-Ellingsen Group/Artists Rights
Edvard Munch, ‘The Scream,’ 1895
At the “Scream” auction, Mr. Meyer went on instinct. During a long pause around $93 million, the auctioneer says just looking at expert Stephane Connery assured him that a client would bid more by phone, despite the silence. “Stephane’s body language wasn’t the one of somebody who had resigned to not bidding anymore—he was probably hearing no, but I knew that his own instinct was telling me” otherwise, he says. Finally, after several more minutes of back-and-forth bids, Mr. Meyer read Mr. Connery’s eyes and realized the client had given up. The winning sum of $107 million—the remainder of the record price came from Sotheby’s fees—was offered by Charlie Moffett, a Sotheby’s specialist who often represents American bidders.
Mr. Meyer takes a ritualized approach to any auction day. He wakes at 7 a.m. and eats a bowl of fruit with yogurt and honey, attends a 9:15 presale meeting at Sotheby’s, runs for 30 minutes on a treadmill at the gym before eating chicken soup for lunch and napping for an hour. He goes over his notes for the sale and returns to Sotheby’s at 4:30 for a last-minute meeting. A half-hour before the sale, he downs a four-shot skinny latte. A security guard fetches him for a freight-elevator ride to the saleroom.
The auctioneer, who speaks German, French and English and holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Vienna, greets three or four important collectors before starting the auction. He always wears the gold-and-lapis-lazuli cuff links his mother gave him when he was 14 and carries the same gavel that he used when he sold “Boy With a Pipe” in 2004. That work broke a record for an artwork at auction when it sold for $104.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York. For the “Scream” sale, he added an extra-confident twist, dressing in a double-breasted tux by his designer-friend Tom Ford.
After the auction, an associate handed him a glass of white wine in a paper napkin. He kissed one or two people on both cheeks. The relief was written on his face. “I am hired at that moment to make the work as expensive as possible,” he says of his job description. Clearly, his work was done.
Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared May 4, 2012, on page D6 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: An Auctioneer’s Big Night.
1. Visit a hipster village made from shipping containers.
![[Pueblo]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OD-AR108_Pueblo_F_20120504121034.jpg)
Container City
Container City in Puebla
In the San Andrés district of the town of Cholula, in the shadow of Tlachihualtepetl pyramid, a group of young entrepreneurs has been channeling Brooklyn. Their 54,000-square-foot Container City is built from recycled shipping boxes, brightly painted and stacked. The creatively inclined have set up design studios in the containers, as well as tattoo parlors, cafes, vintage clothing shops, sushi bars and farm-to-table taquerias. There’s live entertainment almost every night, including top deejays from Mexico City at Taxi Cerveceria, which fills up with students from the nearby Universidad de las Américas Puebla.
containercity.com.mx
2. Learn to dish up insects.
While many Pueblan dishes, such as mole poblano and pipián verde, are celebrated fare, some lesser-known snacks are equally memorable—for different reasons. The restaurant El Mural de los Poblanos in the capital city of Puebla offers three-hour classes where you can learn to cook standard choices as well as exotic options like chapulines (toasted and seasoned grasshoppers), gusanos de maguey con salsa borracha (maguey worms, shown here, in a pulque-based sauce) and escamoles (ant larvae), a sort of arthropod caviar. About $77, elmuraldelospoblanos.com
3. Unleash your inner luchador.
Each week, Mexico’s version of WWE, the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, holds several hours of televised matches with big-name luchadores (wrestlers) at the Arena Puebla. The event brings together a weird assemblage of characters ranging from the técnicos (good guys) and rudos (bad guys) to little people and sultry ring girls who work their craft amid three levels of cursing, chanting, drumming fans. The food stalls and mask vendors outside create a festival-like atmosphere. Design stores in Puebla even sell Lucha Libre-inspired art. Seats from about $6, cmll.com/puebla.htm
![[Pueblo]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OD-AR111_Pueblo_DV_20120504022546.jpg)
Eye Ubiquitous/Alamy
Hot chocolate
4. Toast the deceased with hot chocolate.
Puebla’s Día de los Muertos celebrations don’t lack in authenticity or grandeur. At Casa de la Cultura in the city of Puebla, there’s a spectacular altar-building contest. In the village of Huaquechula, massive examples in cardboard and satin serve as offerings to the dead, and locals open their homes to strangers, sharing a cup of cocoa or homemade tamales (leave a few pesos or a candle out of respect). Maps are passed out on the main plaza, showing the homes with the most elaborate ofrendas. Nov. 1-2, huaquechula.gob.mx
—Nicholas Gill
Explore More
![[paraty1]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OD-AO724_paraty_C_20120209203450.jpg)
A version of this article appeared May 5, 2012, on page D11 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Only In…Puebla.