#stavros niarchos

[camillerowep]

May 30, 2023 — Camille reshared on her story!

[missanxietyandstress]

SNFCC Athens ❤️

[onihcinimkcin]

library design is my passion

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil:

*Think* I’m up to date with your Tumblr / Bluesky answers, sorry if I missed this, but how did the interview of Dr. Jenni Haukio and Eliza Reid – the First Ladies of Finland and Iceland - on Wednesday, Sept. 20th at NYPL come together?

Hope people can attend or listen to the stream: it sounds fascinating.

https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2023/09/20/first-ladies-finland-and-iceland-neil-gaiman

Thanks,

Randi

P.S. If you can find out if the NYPL folks are calling the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (nee Mid-Manhattan Library) as SNIFFLE vs the spelled out SNFL, it’s be appreciated.

They asked.

[kiraastro]

What's with bharani and scorpios having beef but also crazy obsession with each other??

Prime example of this is the YEARS long beef between Lindsay Lohan (bharani moon) and Paris Hilton (jyestha lagna), which began when Lindsay allegedly became romantically connected to Paris' ex-bf, Stavros Niarchos III.

In the film Death Becomes Her (1992) a similar story plays out. Madeline Ashton is played by Meryl Streep (bharani moon) and Helen Sharp played by Goldie Hawn (anuradha sun). Meryl's character seduces Goldie's character's husband, leading to an endless feud between the two.

What's even more interesting is that an uttara bhadrapada man is at the center of this feud in both examples. Stavros (Paris' ex) can have uttara bhadrapada or purva phadrapada moon, while Ernest Menville (the man that is fought over by the women in Death Becomes Her) is played by Bruce Willis who has uttara bhadrapada sun...

☆彡

The synchronicity is real...

[longreads]

This month, our sister publication @atavist is featuring a remarkable piece of journalism by Sarah Souli investigating the harrowing story of three murdered migrant women on the Greek-Turkish border. Read an excerpt here. 

“Bodies turn up along the Evros River with morbid regularity. The thin, shallow waterway divides Greece and Turkey for some 120 miles—the countries’ only shared land border—before dumping into the Aegean Sea. The area around Papachatzidis’s farm is a popular gateway for people desperate to enter Europe in search of freedom, safety, and dignity. But while traversing the river is less treacherous than a boat passage across the Mediterranean, it is by no means safe. Between 2018 and 2022, more than 200 migrants and refugees died trying to cross the Evros. Hypothermia and drowning are the most common causes of death. The strong current is challenging even for capable swimmers, and natural debris such as tree branches can snag on clothing and drag people—often children—to the river’s muddy bed. Across the Evros, other dangers await. Smugglers load people into vans bound for Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, with drivers who are often scared and inexperienced, resulting in horrific car crashes along the highway.

Murder, though, is a different matter. It is all but unheard of in Evros, the Greek region that takes its name from the river. For locals, the crime on Papachatzidis’s land was the most brutal act in recent memory.”

[leveloneandup]

Grassroot Soccer 2023 World AIDS Day Gala

On November 30, 2023, the Ninth Annual Grassroot Soccer (GRS) World AIDS Day Gala at Lindley Hall in London raised almost $2 million for GRS, which uses the power of soccer to equip young people with the life-saving information, services, and mentorship they need to live healthier lives.

Featuring celebrities and high-profile individuals from the worlds of sport, entertainment, and global health, the evening focused on the theme of mental health - the most critical health issue facing young people globally, and one that affects other urgent health challenges, including HIV/AIDS. During the evening, GRS honored the television series Ted Lasso and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) for their respective impact on mental health with the Game-Changer Award.

Attendees included: Christen Press, Tobin Heath, Brendan Hunt, Kola Bokinni, Billy Harris, June Sarpong, Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngouka, Fiona Ferguson, Ethan Zohn, and HALE ZERO, along with video appearances by David Beckham, Seth Meyers, Siya Kolisi, Phil Dunster, Nick Mohammed, and Cristo Fernandez.

[power-chords]

It strikes me as one of those moments I will remember forever, so I’d better write it down (ha, ha): Finishing City of Glass in the Stavros Niarchos branch of the New York Public Library, closing the book, and realizing the man speaking calmly behind me on his cell phone is expounding, credulously, upon some antisemitic conspiracy theory involving child sex trafficking. I can’t see him — still haven’t looked at him — so all I can take in is this disembodied voice. And in that moment I feel nothing except totally compelled to listen with rapt attention to the entire thing.

[gemsofgreece]

hi! is there any attraction/place in Athens that you would highly recommend visiting? Maybe, hidden gems, or underrated places that are awesome? :') i apologize if this is a popular question that you get haha

Hello @dandelionesa ! You would be surprised at how little I know about Athens. I have been few times in my life there, despite being a native Greek living in the country all my life. I mean, I have lived there for a month once but I didn't explore at all beyond the neighborhood. So, I can tell you all the significant places not to miss but I lack the personal insight in little known gems.

Another thing about the blog is that if you visit from the browser, I have an option called "The Regions" which is essentially a travel guide about all main locations in Greece. It is not complete yet but the Athens one is. You can find it in: The Regions > Sterea Hellas > Attica for feature references. But, here, I am gonna screenshot the sightseeing recs mentioned there.

These are about Attica, the region that encompasses Athens. Most attractions are naturally inside Athens but there are some important ones like the Vouliagmeni Lake and the Temple of Poseidon that include driving / travelling outside the city.

The list is concise so I don't explain what each of these places is but they are worth visiting if you have the time. Of course, to do a proper journey of Athens, where Athens is going to be your focus, that takes time. It is a large place. Most people stay in Athens for two days before going to the main part of their vacation, usually some islands. You can't say you did Athens in two days though. Whoever says that to you, don't believe them. You can do Acropolis and like two-three museums at most in this time.

Apart from the ones above I also found some recs from other websites about hidden gems:

Philopappos Hill (that's not a hidden gem, I just forgot it in my own list lol)

Hellenic Motor Museum

Pnyx

Museum of the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation

Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments

Ilias Lalaounis Jewellery Museum

Benakis Museum of Islamic Art (NOTE: this is a different museum than the main Benakis one which I mention in the list above, if you can do both great, but if you can only do one, then the main must absolutely not be missed)

First Cemetery of Athens (yep, it's a valid rec)

National Observatory of Athens

Watch open air cinema in Thiseion. Or in the rooftop of Cine Paris.

The Greek National Opera (Ethnikí Lyrikí Skiní)

The Nautical Museum on the cruiser Averof

The Benakis (another Benakis) Toy Museum

I don't know what's wrong with me and I forgot to mention above:

Kapnikarea Church

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens

The UNESCO Monastery of Daphne

The New National Library (Stavros Niarchos Foundation). The one I mention in the first list is the Old National Library. Both are worth a visit for different reasons.

Go to Glyfada and along the Vouliagmeni coast for swimming (Vouliagmeni is a lake right next to the sea beach)

The Orthodox Church of Saint Dionysius of Areopagus

The Catholic Church of Saint Dionysius of Areopagus!

I was sleeping on the fact that there were two churches of those!

As you see I also added some recs for experiences i.e cinemas, theatres and so on. These are if you take your time in Athens, explore or stay for a while. Note that some might be less available in the summer, for example in summer the National Opera operates in open air performances like in the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus. If you stay and explore, check for concerts in theatres and stadiums. Concerts in Greece are real nice and vibey.

In retrospect, thanks for sending this ask because I realised I have a shitload of editing to do in my original list.

EDIT!!! The Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens!!!! Srsly what's wrong with me lol

EDIT 2!!! Kotsaná Museum of Ancient Greek Technology!!! :@@@

[travelingare]

📍Athens,Greece 🇬🇷

Christmas in Athen🎄

📸@d.tzankatian

📍Syntagma Square

📍Piraeus

📍Stavros Niarchos

📍Christmas factory

📍The Ellinikon Experience

📍Golden Hall

📍Omonoia square

[leanstooneside]

Confess and be hanged

Kathy Griffin's elbow (Other congenital malformations of hair)

Dave Navarro's forehead (Subluxation of lens, unspecified eye)

Jessica Biel's eye (Other hammer toe(s) (acquired), left foot)

James Franco's fist (Solitary bone cyst, left ulna and radius)

Simon Doonan's thigh (Malignant neoplasm of left orbit)

Carson Palmer's head (School (private) (public) (state) as the place of occurrence of the external cause)

Pitbull's eye (Chondrolysis, hip)

Kevin Federline's eye (Osseous and subluxation stenosis of intervertebral foramina of abdomen and other regions)

Tate Donovan's thigh (Chronic myeloid leukemia, BCR/ABL-positive, in remission)

Ryan Gosling's arm (Pedal cycle passenger injured in collision with fixed or stationary object in traffic accident)

Sean Combs's neck (Mixed pediculosis and phthiriasis)

Katharine McPhee's chin (Calcific tendinitis, right lower leg)

Katrina Bowden's back (Kernicterus, unspecified)

Balthazar Getty's hair (Toxic effect of contact with other venomous marine animals, assault)

Elizabeth Taylor's ear (Displaced trimalleolar fracture of left lower leg)

Kelsey Grammer's eye (Major laceration of left kidney)

Kerry Diamond's neck (Scrotal transposition)

Jason Lee's wrist (Papyraceous fetus, first trimester)

Josh Holloway's upper arm (Activity, swimming)

Desiree Hartsock's ear (Swimmer's ear, left ear)

Jared Leto's eyebrow (Pathological fracture, right hand)

Rumer Willis's eye (Lesion of plantar nerve)

Ramona Singer's arm (Other specified injury of intrinsic muscle and tendon at ankle and foot level, left foot)

Emily VanCamp's calf (Nicotine dependence, cigarettes, with withdrawal)

Jane Krakowski's fist (Other unilateral secondary osteoarthritis of hip)

Vince Vaughn's lower leg (Unspecified complication following infusion and therapeutic injection)

Olivia Palermo's shoulder (Laceration without foreign body of right back wall of thorax with penetration into thoracic cavity)

Russell Brand's wrist (Malignant neoplasm of left orbit)

Jackson Rathbone's belly (Primary cyst of pars plana, unspecified eye)

Garth Brooks's eyebrow (Nondisplaced fracture of anterior process of left calcaneus)

Adrian Grenier's nose (Military operations involving flamethrower, civilian)

Jesse Tyler Ferguson's hair (Retinal hemorrhage, left eye)

Martin Lawrence's ankle (Hemorrhagic disease of newborn)

Spencer Pratt's neck (Perforated corneal ulcer, unspecified eye)

Ashley Hebert's bottom (Major laceration of left kidney)

Hugh Jackman's bottom (Laceration of radial artery at wrist and hand level of left arm)

Paris Hilton's chin (Preterm labor without delivery, unspecified trimester)

Simon Cowell's arm (Contusion of small intestine)

Tila Tequila's cheek (Other superficial bite of hand of unspecified hand)

Jennifer Grey's toe (Injury of quadriceps muscle, fascia and tendon)

Brody Jenner's hip (Laceration without foreign body of back wall of thorax without penetration into thoracic cavity)

Ciara's hair (Diffuse cystic mastopathy of unspecified breast)

Molly Sims's chin (Urticaria due to cold and heat)

Luke Bryan's buttocks (Urticaria due to cold and heat)

Richard Gere's breast (Endometriosis of pelvic peritoneum)

Jensen Ackles's calf (Other ulcerative colitis with intestinal obstruction)

Teresa Giudice's head (Laceration of extensor muscle, fascia and tendon of left middle finger at forearm level)

Stavros Niarchos III's ear (Striatonigral degeneration)

Winona Ryder's thumb (Acute embolism and thrombosis of right femoral vein)

Scott Disick's forearm (Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type)

[camillerowep]

April 3, 2023 — Camille via her story!

[cenestpasisa]

Paris Hilton and then-boyfriend Greek Tycoon heir stavros niarchos’s summer romance in 2005 🐬 VC

[grandmaster-anne]

The avant-garde Princess Margaret

By Andrew Morton | Published 16 June 2021

Decades before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were flag-bearers of the progressive and global, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon were established as Britain’s hippest couple, peerless representatives of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and living proof that the monarchy could be both traditional and modern.

According to Lord Ardwick, editor of the Daily Herald, the Snowdons signified ‘a new kind of royalty’. He went on: ‘they had far more contacts among writers and artists and so forth, not among stuffy courtiers. They became the new family model of fast travelling, hard-working, affluent young people – but at a price, a cost that was not always welcome.’ Together, this bohemian couple raced through the streets of London on Snowdon’s motorcycle or in his new Mini, visiting street markets, jazz clubs and theatres.

Such was their appeal that even First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was deeply disappointed when neither the princess nor her husband was present at a dinner in honour of President Kennedy held at Buckingham Palace in June 1961. Internationally, they were the royal version of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton: sophisticated, artistic and raffish. Once, Margaret tried on the 29.4-carat diamond ring that had been given to Taylor by her third husband Mike Todd. She joked it was ‘vulgar’. Liz replied: ‘Yeah ain’t it great.’

Vibrant, dynamic and glamorous, Margaret and Tony in the early years captivated the nation, injecting new life and energy into what Prince Philip called ‘the Firm’. Everything from their fashions to their crowd – naturally ‘in’ – was a playful counterpoint to the Queen and her Court. If the Snowdons were deemed ‘hip plush’, the Queen was ‘starchy matron’ – her fashions were still chosen by her dresser since childhood, Bobo MacDonald. Just as her father had done, it was Tony who guided Margaret’s style, urging her to adopt simpler, skimpier trends to mirror the taste and temper of the time. Though she never wore miniskirts, her skirts and dresses were still much shorter than those of other royal women. She also experimented with kaftans, lace stockings and costume jewellery, and at one point the princess was voted just behind actor Grace Kelly in the annual ‘World’s Best Dressed Woman’ contest.

In contrast to the Queen’s unalterable look, Margaret’s hairstyle was constantly changing, from glossy bobs to elaborate, high-reaching coiffures adorned with hairpieces. Nor was she afraid to showcase daring trends: pale lipstick, heavy eye shadow, long earrings, and a provocatively low neckline. Tony’s clothes were just as modish: velvet jackets, voile shirts and barrow-boy caps. He even wore a white polo neck instead of black tie to formal events.

While the Queen and Prince Philip remained on British soil for their holidays, Margaret and Tony quickly became members of the international jet set and much-sought-after guests of the rich and powerful. At a time when travel abroad was exclusive and expensive, their holidays on a millionaire’s yacht or villa excited awe and jealousy in equal measure. In September 1963, when the Queen and the rest of the royal family were at Balmoral, the Snowdons holidayed on a private Aegean island owned by Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos, which came fully stocked with game birds for shooting parties.

The following year it was the turn of the British-born Aga Khan to fly them on his private plane to the exclusive resort of Costa Smeralda on the Italian island of Sardinia, where they were able to water-ski, sail, snorkel and sunbathe in relative privacy. They returned to the island often. On one occasion, the Aga Khan’s yacht, the Amaloun, hit a rock and started to sink. Tony dove into the water and the others took to a life raft, from which they were rescued by a passing boat. Significantly, the first person Margaret contacted to say all was well was the Queen.

That escapade did not dim their enthusiasm for all things Italian. It became a favoured holiday destination. In the summer of 1965, for example, the couple drove to Rome in Tony’s Aston Martin to see the sights and be received by the Pope in a private audience. The paparazzi stalked them constantly, one photographer observing: ‘You have to remember that Princess Margaret and Elizabeth Taylor are the two most wanted women in the world.’

Once the Snowdons moved into their newly renovated, 20-roomed home at Kensington Palace in March 1963, an invitation to supper or for a sing-along around the grand piano became the hottest ticket in town. Their social circle reflected their bohemian bent, singers, musicians, artists and writers all beating a path to 1a Clock Court.

Their servants did not mind working 18-hour days when they had the chance to glimpse luminaries such as designer Mary Quant, writer Edna O’Brien – Margaret did a good impression of the writer’s breathless, confiding speech patterns – actor Peter Sellers and his wife Britt Ekland, ballet dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, and trend-setting hairdresser Vidal Sassoon. The Snowdons even befriended the Beatles, with John Lennon famously nicknaming the couple ‘Priceless Margarine’ and ‘Bony Armstrove’. On one occasion, George Harrison asked Margaret to get his drug-possession charges dropped. She declined. ‘I adored them because they were poets as well as musicians,’ the princess later recalled.

Their parties were replete with the rich and famous. The comedian and musician Dudley Moore would play the piano; Cleo Laine and her jazz musician husband John Dankworth would sing; John Betjeman, a future poet laureate, would tell stories. Often, Princess Margaret would join in playing the piano and singing tunes from her favourite musicals. When the lights were out at Buckingham Palace, they were still blazing until the early hours at the Snowdons’ salon – invariably at Margaret’s bidding.

Established in her own home for the first time in her life and with baby number two on the way, Margaret’s life was scintillating, busy and happy. She could even share the mutual joys and difficulties of pregnancy with her sister, as the Queen gave birth to her fourth child, Prince Edward, in March 1964. Elizabeth and Prince Philip made a modest concession to modernity: for the first time, Prince Philip was present at the birth, which took place in the Belgian Suite at Buckingham Palace.

During this time, the differing personalities of the two sisters became more sharply delineated and formalised as Margaret established her own home and social circle. At last she had her own salon where the princess, a performer and extrovert at heart, could literally hold court. By contrast, her sister focused her attention on her horses and dogs, her people being the country set who followed the jumps and the flats. Animals never broke her trust, let her down or came to her with difficult problems.

While Margaret inhabited a social halfway house, befriending the era’s popular icons as well as those with a handle before their first name, Elizabeth’s friends came almost exclusively from the land-owning aristocracy – she first knew her fourth prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, as the owner of land in Scotland – or were those from the Guards regiments such as Lord Plunket and Lord Porchester, her racing manager, who got to know her during the war. When her mother won the Whitbread Gold Cup with Special Cargo, Colonel Bill Whitbread and his wife Betty held a dinner party for the Queen Mother. After dinner they adjourned to another room to watch the race one more time. They were a chair short so the Queen sat on the floor, clearly being comfortable with the racing crowd she was with. It is hard to imagine her being so relaxed with Margaret’s friends. Like her father, the Queen was uncomfortable around artists and the avant-garde.

Trust was always an issue, hence the reliance on familiar faces, on the tried and tested. Arguably, for all their differences, her sister was the Queen’s closest friend and, along with her husband, most stalwart and loyal supporter. Though Margaret was the undoubted queen of the smart set, she was always the supporting act to her sister, never the star of the show. She gave a telling clue as to the origin of this family drama when she said: ‘I’ve never suffered from second daughter-itis. I’ve never minded being referred to as the younger daughter but I do mind being referred to as the younger sister.’ This was a question of place and position in the hierarchy. As historian Michael Nash observed: ‘While her father was King, her own position was more elevated. She was in the mainstream. Immediately after he died, she became a collateral branch.’

Since she’d been a little girl, Margaret was the one drawn to the spotlight, who loved being the centre of attention whether the audience was just her father or, during the war, a table full of Guards officers. Now it was in her sitting room at Kensington Palace that she reigned supreme, singing show tunes as she sipped Famous Grouse whisky.

She was, though, undoubtedly loyal to her sister, just as she was to her friends – a characteristic that pleased the Queen. Her role, as she told writer Andrew Duncan, was to support her sister in her difficult and isolated position. ‘In my own humble way I’ve always tried to take some of the burden off my sister. She can’t do it all you know. And I leap at the opportunity to help.’

Margaret was a pioneer in trying to remove the barriers of snobbery and protocol – but not all. Woe betide the conversational partner who referred to ‘your sister’ or ‘your father’. They received ‘the Windsor glare’. Though she struggled to turn on the electric kettle, when she was a guest at a weekend party she liked to muck in, whether it be laying the fire – a particular pleasure – stripping wallpaper or washing up. She hankered after a life more ordinary but not too ordinary. Royalty mattered most.

It was a social tightrope she walked all her life. As Tony’s business manager Peter Lyster-Todd observed: ‘I often stayed with them for weekends and you never quite knew what you were going to get; friendly Margaret or talking to “Ma’am”.’ It became a common refrain. While drag artist Danny La Rue found Margaret ‘witty and highly intelligent’, he maintained, ‘you always knew you were in the presence of a princess’.

For the Queen’s 39th birthday in 1965, the Snowdons joined Peter Sellers and several other friends in making a 15-minute home movie as a gift for Her Majesty. At one point in the film, Sellers, who played ‘The Great Berko’, proclaimed that in a world-record time of 11 seconds flat he would perform his celebrated impression of Princess Margaret. He then disappeared behind a screen and flung various articles of clothing into the air, after which, a few seconds later, the actual princess emerged, curtseying and grinning before retreating behind the screen. The Queen loved the movie and showed it frequently.

Within months, in November 1965, the princess and her husband were on a professional movie set, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mary Pickford, Charlton Heston, Maurice Chevalier and James Stewart at Universal Studios in Studio City, Hollywood. The three-week, five-city tour of the United States was the chance to fly the flag for Britain and take time to enjoy the sights, courtesy of their host, Margaret’s long-time American friend Sass Douglas, who organised the tour. Besides Los Angeles, the couple charmed San Francisco’s old-money families, dazzled New York’s Upper East Side aristocracy, and greeted locals in small town Arizona – Sass’s home state – before schmoozing President Johnson at a black-tie dinner held at the White House. The royal couple, who had performed numerous successful overseas visits on behalf of the Queen, found themselves the subject of constant criticism – even though many thought the trip a triumph.

While the tour was followed with intense interest by the media, Palace officials watched in horror as the trip devolved into utter mayhem. The getting-to-know-you visit was supposed to show Americans just how sexy and unstuffy the British royals could be. Who more qualified to do that than the House of Windsor’s grooviest couple, Margaret and Tony? Instead, as one columnist put it, the visit caused ‘plenty of trouble’. The jamboree cost the equivalent of US$500,000 and many lost tempers. An aircraft of the Queen’s Flight was sent out to back up a Lockheed JetStar, which an obliging President Johnson had provided. In addition, British Airways lent them a VC10 jet. The couple’s entourage included a Mayfair hairdresser, two menservants, two maids, a detective, a secretary, a lady-in-waiting, a private secretary and the Deputy Captain of the Queen’s Flight.

What followed after touchdown was a litany of missed appointments, cancelled public engagements and highly publicised social snubs. The princess, with her dangerous mix of highfalutin’ formality and fun-loving affability, was difficult to read. One instant she could be all friends together, the next she would be the daughter of the King-Emperor astride her high horse.

At a party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the princess sent a message across the room to say that she would like to hear Judy Garland sing. The singer was incensed by the lordly tone and the trivialising of her talent. She said: ‘Go and tell that nasty, rude little princess that we’ve known each other long enough and gabbed enough in ladies’ rooms that she should skip the ho-hum royal routine, pop over here and ask me herself. Tell her I’ll sing if she christens a ship first.’

Then, when Margaret met with President Johnson and his wife Lady Bird, she made full use of her ‘actressy’ nature. According to one observer, who saw her at a ball at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ‘It’s a put-on; campy; tongue-in-cheek camp. She’s doing an impersonation of herself.’ Princess Margaret – always the performer – loved opportunities where she could showcase her ‘star’ nature, becoming an exaggeration of her own public persona.

The couple were subject to a flurry of critical headlines from both sides of the political divide back in the UK, the left-wing New Statesman describing her tour as a ‘private rubbernecking trip to the American fun centres’ while the right-wing Sunday Express called it a ‘holiday frolic among the tinsel princes and princesses of Hollywood’.

After her return to London in late November, questions were asked in the House of Commons about her behaviour. In a private report, the British ambassador, Sir Patrick Dean, reported diplomatically: ‘They worked hard and played hard. It was a mistake that so much of their time was spent with and organised by Miss Douglas. It was not always possible to persuade the American public that HRH and Lord Snowdon were serious as well as gay people.’ When the princess spoke of returning to the States in 1973, British ambassador Lord Cromer torpedoed the suggestion. Margaret’s private secretary Lieutenant-Colonel Burnaby-Atkins was told, ‘Lord Cromer is not at all keen on having the Princess in the United States, possibly for some time to come. This is mainly due to the behaviour of some of HRH’s friends, who tend to take such visits lightly.’

With headlines like ‘Luxury tour’, ‘Who pays’ and ‘Own hairdresser’, the impression was left in the public mind once again that the princess was neither pulling her weight nor cost effective. Once established, this narrative would dog her for the rest of her life, no matter how many public engagements she undertook on behalf of the Queen.

The wheels were beginning to come off – not just in terms of her public image but also concerning the couple’s private behaviour. Similar in so many ways, the personality traits that had at first united now gradually divided them. It was Margaret’s tragedy that consciously and subconsciously she fell for a man who exhibited similar characteristics to herself rather than her sister.

Tragically, it soon became apparent that, in the worst sense, Margaret and Tony were ‘two peas in a pod’, both strong-willed, competitive, ‘centre-stage’ people used to getting their way. The princess had long been indulged and coddled, while Tony was magnetic and ambitious, bolder and more conniving than Margaret herself. With their personalities ‘too alike, too selfish’, as friends recalled, they were bound to clash. In this battle of wills, Snowdon, as the Queen’s biographer Sarah Bradford noted, was much better at being nasty than Margaret.

Though the earliest years of their marriage were happy and stimulating, Snowdon soon chafed at the bars of the royal cage – as his friends had predicted.

Before the couple married, Margaret’s lady-in-waiting Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, who first introduced them, asked the princess if she could genuinely cope with Tony’s ‘bohemian world’. When Lady Elizabeth explained that he would be here, there and everywhere with his professional commitments and would not always be home for dinner, Margaret dismissed her concerns, believing that their passion and deep connection would overcome all obstacles.

For all her surface royal sheen, Margaret was a surprisingly shy, insecure woman, more so than her sister, and once marital hostilities began it was easy for Snowdon to knock her off her perch. In the beginning he could pass off his casual controlling cruelties as practical jokes.

In the summer of 1963, when the couple stayed with wealthy Greek ship owner Stavros Niarchos on his private island, Spetsopoula, friends on a nearby island threw a party to celebrate Margaret’s thirty-third birthday. When Tony arrived, he brought presents for everyone – except his wife. Then, as the two were getting ready for the barbecue that night, Margaret shouted from upstairs, ‘Oh, darling, what shall I wear?’ Tony replied, ‘I think that ball gown you wore last week.’ Margaret, suspecting nothing, arrived at the dinner dressed to the hilt, while all the other guests wore casual jeans. These kinds of jokes-in-disguise progressively undermined her self-confidence and her trust in her husband. As the years ticked by, the photographer’s controlling behaviour could be described as mental cruelty.

For all her differences with her sister, she saw the Queen’s successful marriage as a template she should imitate. Like Tony, Philip was an alpha male, creative, bombastic and strong-willed but accepting of his secondary role in the marriage. As he had once told a friend: ‘This is my destiny – to support my wife in what lies ahead for her.’ In the early years, Snowdon performed this role exactly as Margaret had imagined – a smiling, gracious and deferential addition to her retinue.

Once he began working for the Sunday Times, he reverted to type, a workaholic with a wandering eye. An early riser, he was working when Margaret, after a long night carousing, was still in bed, often until shortly before noon. After a row he might send her a note, loving but firm, suggesting that she drink less and retire to bed earlier. Given her later health problems, this note could be interpreted as a husband’s fond concern for his wife. He had the ability, which she found ultimately frustrating, of skilfully laying every problem with the marriage at her door.

She knew instinctively that if she started complaining to her sister or mother, they wouldn’t want to know. They had experienced a lifetime of Margaret’s rudeness and self-absorption, so probably would side with the angelic and courteous Tony. The Queen knew it had been a long struggle for her own husband to adapt, so she sympathised with Tony’s juggling act, working as a photographer as well as undertaking national and international royal duties.

The couple began to move in different worlds. Though Margaret had longed to create a life outside royal circles, at moments of personal tension she fell back on the familiar, namely the formalities and superficialities of the royal world. In this world, her natural habitat, it was others who had to compromise to her standards and requirements.

But as Tony began to exhibit a growing need for independence, she became increasingly possessive, calling him on assignments, at restaurants or at the homes of friends. Lacking Elizabeth’s economy of emotion, Margaret could not accept that someone had ‘out-royaled her’. Since she was a girl, she had used her personality and position to get away with murder. As the gloves came off in their marriage, she began to realise she had finally met her match.

Though she was aware of the backstage drama in her sister’s marriage, the Queen simply watched and waited, hoping that matters would resolve themselves.

The cracks remained, as Tony found his duties as consort increasingly burdensome. He snapped, ‘I am not a member of the royal family. I am married to a member of the royal family.’ He focused fiercely on his job, travelling around the world on assignments, both for still photography and filming documentaries. It was creatively fulfilling but it was a world that was alien to the princess. Though she pleaded with him to let her join him on projects, he flatly refused, saying he wanted to be as anonymous as possible.

Meanwhile, Margaret remained at home, pregnant and bored. Just as the sisters had faced the challenges of pregnancy together, Elizabeth fretted over the effects of the deteriorating marriage on her sister. She knew that Margaret’s doctor – worried that marital strain was endangering her second pregnancy – had even warned Tony directly about his behaviour.

While the pregnant princess marked time, Tony was busier than ever, shooting portraits of the likes of Charlie Chaplin, and Sophia Loren. He also designed the impressive Snowdon Aviary at the London Zoo, which opened in October 1964. Most importantly, he began to evolve into a progressive voice for change, championing the disadvantaged, dispossessed and disabled. Not only did he photograph blind and deaf children, as well as victims of rubella, but he also started making award-winning TV documentaries about old age, mental health, disability, poverty and children. He was delighted that the Queen watched his work, the Sovereign complimenting him fulsomely on his efforts.

As Snowdon’s star rose, Margaret’s only claim to fame continued to be an accident of birth – a truth she shrank from her entire life.

The seeds of discontent were now sown. Rows she could bear; at least they signified emotional engagement. It was the silent treatment she dreaded. He would arrive home late and then head straight to his basement work room, often ignoring his wife’s requests to meet with guests.

With the birth of their second child, Sarah Frances Elizabeth, on 1 May 1964, there was a temporary truce. Tony had his assistant fetch a huge bouquet for Margaret from the florist. Ever conscious of royal protocol that the Queen must be the first to know the baby’s birth and sex, Tony instructed the assistant: ‘If they do it up in pink ribbon, hide it – otherwise the press’ll know that it’s a girl.’ An hour after the birth, Tony visited his wife and new daughter, then dutifully telephoned the Queen and Queen Mother, who came to see the infant in the severe black of court mourning following the death of the King of Greece. It was not an auspicious omen.

This is an edited extract from Elizabeth & Margaret by Andrew Morton

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Currently at Arsenal Contemporary are Dorian FitzGerald’s paintings for his exhibition Fitzcarraldo. The images above are a few of the larger paintings from the show. The works initially look like photographs, but on closer inspection you can see more of the process involved in their creation.

Below is a section from the press release discussing FitzGerald’s work and the paintings pictured above. For more on the other works shown, including some of the smaller paintings, head to the gallery's website.

FitzGerald has spent the last two decades meticulously crafting a compelling, often monumental body of works, several of which have taken years to finish. His various lines of inquiry revolve around a central tenet: that the excesses, the follies, the deceptions and indulgences, the grand edifices, the opulence, the waste and plunder, the vanities, the subterfuges and the chummy pacts of the wealthy and the powerful, are all fodder for scrutiny. His subjects have ranged from the outdoor stage at the secretive Bohemian Grove during a production of Faust, a fake crown of costume jewelry made by the British to impress the King of Adra and help them facilitate their slave trade, to the staggering array of sunglasses collected by Elton John, to a vast aquarium stocked with black market fish. In this regard, FitzGerald has been compared to a contemporary court painter, albeit one who fully understands the paradox of using ostensibly beautiful works of art to deliver barbed comment on the very subjects he has so painstakingly rendered. FitzGerald’s large paintings are constructed with acrylic paint (and occasionally caulking) in a slow, precise method that the artist has refined in his studio over several years. The pre-process involves researching imagery, preparing it with custom software, making a large-scale acetate transfer onto canvas and then building up the paint slowly in a manner that resembles a kind of pointillism filtered through vector graphics. Both colour theory and the physical properties of paint, such as drying times and viscosity, are brought to bear in the setting of the final image. The infinite patience and granular attention to detail suggest a kinship with Tibetan sand painting. While the latter, once finished, is soon wiped away to drive home the impermanence of all things, FitzGerald’s works tend to hold a mirror up to that innately human wish to be exalted and remembered in the minds of others before the scythe comes down, as it inevitably does for queen, shepherd (and artist) alike.

Anchoring the exhibition is a pair of monumental paintings, both depicting a room in a Parisian apartment. Salon, Apartment of Valerian Rybar and Jean-François Daigre, Rue du Bac, Paris (2015) is the furnished version. Daigre and Rybar’s New York- and Paris-based firm Valerian Rybar & Daigre Design Corporation was renowned for providing the most lavish interior design and decorating for society doyennes from Miami Beach to Marakkesh in the 1970s and 1980s. It was closed following Rybar’s death in 1992. Their clients included Guy and Marie-Helene de Rothschild, Nicholas and Genevieve DuPont, Antenor and Beatriz Patino, Samuel and Mitzi Newhouse, Pierre and Sao Schlumberger, Sir James Goldsmith, Christina Onassis and Stavros Niarchos. They employed a host of artisans all over the world who did anything from paint Medieval tapestries on blank walls to create mother-of-pearl panels for a bathroom. They designed much of the furniture and rugs and were meticulous about the choice of fabrics, using opulent materials like satins trimmed with gold thread. The related painting, four years in the making, acts as a kind of coda. Salon, Rue de Bac, Paris (2022), depicts the same room after Rybar’s death, now an empty hall of mirrors en route to being dismantled. The searing band of red in the centre of the painting, glowing behind a door already off its hinges, is a peek into the molten bedroom that they had once kitted out like a Roman general’s tent.

Aquarium (Taboo) (2018), at 128” long and 40” high, was two years in the making. The painting shows a vibrant aquatic scene, with dazzling exotic fish and a mesmerizing array of coral. But the fish are black market, the coral has been pilfered, the 240-gallon tank is overcrowded with 53 specimens and the entire enterprise is kept alive by a complex system that is wholly unnatural and requires constant vigilance to prevent collapse. Of course, wild fish bound for the aquarium market must be caught alive and thus there exists an unsavoury network of divers who prowl the world’s reefs to find the most exotic and rare, often using cyanide spray to stun them (or inadvertently kill them if too much is used). The cyanide, when it settles on coral, soon kills that too.

This exhibition closes on 5/20/23.

[nickpol]

Καλό Πάσχα from Stavros Niarchos Foundation on Vimeo.