HICHEM

A suspected bomb has been found outside the home of George Soros, a billionaire hate figure for right-wing campaigners in eastern Europe. The device was found in a mailbox outside the 88-year-old’s New York residence, police said. An employee at Soros’ home opened the package, and, after realising what it was, left the device in a wooded area. Authorities were called and bomb squad technicians detonated it, a police official told the New York Times. Soros — who was not at home when the device was delivered, according to the NYT — is a controversial personality in eastern Europe, where he is accused by right-wingers of financing liberal causes. He has also been victim of a hostile media campaign by the nationalist government in his native Hungary.

A collection of "Toiles" on display of the upcoming Dior Show at the Denver Art Museum on November 13, 2018 in Denver. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post). Christian Dior was only at the helm of his fashion business for 10 years, but his influence — and the company’s — is so outsized that more than seven decades later, the brand remains both iconic and influential. “Dior: From Paris to the World,” opening Nov. 19 at the Denver Art Museum, traces the French fashion house from its founding in 1947 to the present, focusing on the haute couture creations of Dior as well as the six designers who followed him. With today’s fashion consumers jaded by having seen it all, it’s hard to imagine a time when a fashion designer’s creations would be so revolutionary that they would draw worldwide attention. But that is what Dior accomplished with his “New Look,” so dubbed by American magazine editor Carmel Snow. Following the deprivation and rationing of World War II, Dior sensed that women wanted to feel and look feminine again, so he created a silhouette with a fitted bodice, nipped waist and voluminous skirt. The shape was used in opulent embroidered gowns as well as his famous “Bar” jacket with padded shoulders and hips, named for the cocktail hot spot of the time, the Hotel Plaza Athéenée. Not everyone approved of such extravagance when many in Europe were still impoverished after the war, but the accolades poured in and Dior was off to the races. The Denver Art Museum exhibition — curated by Florence Müller, an art and fashion historian who has worked on more than 15 exhibits on Dior alone — will feature clothing as well as accessories, costume jewelry, paintings, photos, videos, letters and sketches. Müller, the museum’s Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art and Fashion, said a total of 202 garments will be on display, and “ninety-nine percent of them couture,” made by hand in Dior’s Paris ateliers. Some were worn by the company’s well-heeled patrons, others by Hollywood celebrities like Grace Kelly in the 1950s and Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Lawrence today. Leading up to the exhibition opening, a team of about a dozen people, some flown in from Paris, spent days dressing mannequins purchased specially for the show. Since the mid-19th century, Stockman dressmaker forms have been used by French couturiers. Müller said she was a little worried how the clothing would look on them, given the forms lack the stylized heads, arms and legs of modern-day mannequins. “But it has been a good surprise because the dressers have been able to shape the clothes and bring them to life. It’s very intense work and beautiful to look at, almost like a couture workshop,” the curator said of the process. The show also boasts an architectural set design from Shohei Shigematsu, a partner at OMA and director of its New York office. “The whole exhibit is based on curves,” Müller says, from the path attendees will follow to one of the OMA-designed galleries where works are displayed on a metal structure with petal-like layers. The entrance to the upcoming Dior: From Paris to the World show at the Denver Art Museum on November 13, 2018 in Denver, Colorado. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post) Roots of creation. The house of Dior was founded on two of the designer’s favorite things: flowers and female beauty. Dior was born in the seaside town of Granville, France, surrounded by gardens that would influence him for life, first when he worked in art galleries and later in fashion. “After women, flowers are the most lovely thing God has given the world,” Dior wrote in “The Little Dictionary of Fashion,” published in 1954. “Dior had this idea to link femininity, flowers and nature,” Müller said, adding that the couturier saw those things as fundamental to the history of art as explored by writers, poets, painters and, yes, fashion designers. Dior’s first collection was based on the corolla, the arrangement of petals at the center of a flower. The theme has been a recurring motif with the designers who came on board after Dior suffered a fatal heart attack in 1957. First up was Yves Saint Laurent, who Dior had hired as an assistant in 1955. Following Saint Laurent and having the most longevity at the company was Marc Bohan, who was at the helm from 1961 to 1989. Next came Italian couturier Gianfranco Ferre, designing from 1989 to 1997. John Galliano brought his creativity to Dior from 1997 to 2011, when Belgian Raf Simons was hired. Maria Grazia Chiuri, the first woman to head design efforts at Dior, joined the company in 2016. Despite the changing creative directors at the company, the brand has had a continuity that is rare in the fashion world. “If you look at all the great examples of famous couture French houses, Dior is perhaps the only one that has no gap in its history,” Müller says. “Chanel stopped for years during the war.” While each designer has brought his or her own creativity to the brand, they’ve also managed to remain true to the Dior aesthetic. “There is the notion in the art world of the great masters to learn from, and in fashion it is the same thing,” Müller said. “The designers spend time going into the archives, bringing some things from the past to the present day.” And just as Dior was influenced by artists of the day, so have his successors. Simons, for example, had fabrics made for his 2012 couture collection based on the colors and patterns of Sterling Ruby paintings. Chiuri’s collection earlier this year had graphic black and white dresses inspired by a painting done in 1955 by Mexican artist Remedios Varo. For those who argue that fashion is more about commerce than fine art, the complexity of making haute couture garments and the rarity of some of the materials used puts this clothing into a special category. Being able to look at garments up close will allow museum visitors to better understand the complexity of creating them, she said. “I think people will discover couture is a form of art because it’s based on such complicated and elaborate techniques.” So, too, the creative process is to be admired. “To come up with new ideas season after season and challenge the atelier and its suppliers takes research and experimentation,” Müller said. A display of dresses in the upcoming Dior Show at the Denver Art Museum on Nov. 13, 2018 in Denver, Colorado. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post). Creativity and commerce Dior was a savvy businessman. “He set up licensing and all kinds of contracts so that companies could provide a high level of product whether it was scarves, ties or costume jewelry in Canada, Japan and South America,” Müller said. Dior also knew the importance of putting on events that would attract the rich and powerful, such as in opera houses where patrons could wear their elegant Dior creations. The designer traveled widely to promote the company. One of the first major awards he received was from Dallas-based Neiman Marcus, which continues to have a relationship with the house and was the sponsor for the museum’s opening gala in Denver. Early on, Dior opened locations in Mexico, Venezuela and Chile. Many celebrities of the day were regulars at his shows in Paris. Ava Gardner and Lauren Bacall were customers, as were such royals as Princess Grace of Monaco and Princess Margaret of the British royal family. Dior did costumes for a number of movies but was kept so busy with his couture business and international ventures that he had to turn down film offers. Dior continues to have Hollywood A-listers promote its products, with Lawrence featured in the current advertising campaign for its new fragrance, Joy, and dressed by the house for red carpet appearances. Other memorable moments include Kidman wearing a chartreuse chinoiserie silk gown designed by Galliano for Dior at the Academy Awards in 1997, a dress that exhibit-goers will see in Denver. Fitting for a show dubbed “Dior: From Paris to the World,” materials were borrowed from collections near and far. Collectors like American Vogue’s European editor-at-large, Hamish Bowles, loaned gowns. The largest number of pieces came from Dior in France, but Müller said the house didn’t even start taking stock of its history until it had been in business for 40 years. She worked on the company’s 1987 retrospective and said she scrambled to get materials. “We had a hard time because they had almost nothing, just some documents, photos and books.” They had to borrow from other museums to get the clothing needed for the show. Since then, the company has built up its archives and now is “one of the biggest in the world.” Müller said valuable information for the exhibit came from interviews done with present and former employees of the house, including Pierre Cardin, who did tailoring at the house before starting his own business. “We have done a lot of research and will use all these archival materials to tell this fascinating story.” Joy Dinsdale, a museum board member who, with her husband, Chris, is a presenting sponsor for the show, says she expects visitors to be entertained as well as informed. “The strength of the textiles and Mr. Dior’s brilliance as an artist are inspiring,” Dinsdale said. “There is so much history to the house that makes it exhibition-worthy.” “Dior: From Paris to the World” will be on view at the Denver Art Museum Nov. 19-March 3. A dated and timed ticket, which includes an audio tour of the exhibition as well as general museum admission, is required. 100 W. 14th Ave. Parkway. Tickets at 720-913-0130

Audi’s A4 range received a minor update earlier this year, but the firm is now readying a more extensive facelift package for the 2020 model year. Spied winter testing ahead of a reveal some time in 2019, this A4 Avant prototype sports some light disguise, but visual changes already obvious include a set of reprofiled lights and bumpers, a wider and lower grille and, at the rear, a new diffuser design. The changes have been conceived to bring the A4 into line with the newer models in Audi’s range, such as the A6. More extensive changes are expected inside, with the A4 likely to move to Audi’s latest dashboard design demonstrated by the latest A6. This will ditch the current car’s rotary dial control for the infotainment system in favour of a dual-touchscreen layout, splitting the climate controls into a lower touch capacitive display, with the multimedia and navigation functions operated by a larger upper screen. Details of what changes we’ll see under the engine bay are still under wraps, but it’s almost certain Audi will introduce a range of mild-hybrid powertrains to the A4 to allow the car to meet more stringent fleet emissions legislation, coming into force for 2021. Like the A6, base 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines will feature a simple 12v set-up that will bring incremental improvements to efficiency, but the six-cylinder variants will utilise a more advanced 48v system, allowing the engine to be switched off during coasting and decelerating. Expect both engines to claim better fuel consumption, though it’s not yet clear if performance will increase. The current A4 was introduced to the UK in autumn 2015, so is now behind the curve compared to its main rivals, the recently facelift Mercedes C-Class and the BMW 3 Series, which has moved into a new generation. Audi also has more challenges on its hands in the shape of the facelifted Jaguar XE, also due next year around the same time as the A4.

Welcome To NEWLIFEZM

¤ Nickname: HICHEM ¤ Name: HICHEM ¤ Age: 18 ¤ Country: Algeria ¤ City: Djelfa ¤ Favorite Games: Csgo / Cs1.6 ¤ Favorite Shows: - ¤ Favorite Movies: ¤ Favorite Songs / Favorite genre: - ¤ What would you like to do in life:- ¤ Favorite actor - why ?: ¤ Favorite actress - why ?: ¤ You Smoke? / What brand of cigarette smoke: ofc no ¤ What alcoholic drink frequently: nothing ¤ Favorite juice: manga ¤ In what country would you like to live: Romania ¤ Favorite football team: Real madrir ¤ Car models: BMW ¤ A brief description about you: ¤ How did you find NewLifeZm?: very Gooooooooooooooooooooooooood ¤ If you win 1 million dollars, which would be the first thing you do?: help my mother and father

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After a year struggling to make ends meet under Venezuela’s crushing hyperinflation, Jennyfer and her boyfriend decided to flee the country. Everything was ready, except a small but important detail: Jennyfer’s passport. It is now five months since Jennyfer Avero applied for her travel document. But, until today, the 23-year-old craftswoman from Caracas hasn’t anything about the state of her request. Last month, her boyfriend Javier left for Ecuador, becoming part of one of the biggest exoduses in Latin American history. And in the meantime, Jennyfer continues to wait, hoping she will join him soon. “I have no alternative,” she says. “I wouldn’t like to leave without a passport.” Venezuela’s intensifying economic and political crisis has pushed hundreds of thousands to flee the country. They are in search of food, security, medicine and jobs. But not everyone that makes the decision to leave has a valid passport. Venezuelans face multiple difficulties when trying to obtain this document. Some people can wait months, or even years, to get it. The process can be complicated, expensive and sometimes illegal. Day after day crowds queue up outside the headquarters of the passport agency, known as Saime, in Caracas. Saime has more than 200 offices nationwide, however many people come to the headquarters in Caracas hoping to get a passport. Here the possibilities are greater, users say. Everyone is here – women, children, couples and elderly people. Some arrived before dawn; others, those who came from afar, spent the night here. Much of them share the desire to leave the country for good. “This is the fourth time in three months I’ve come here,” says Jose Di Marco, while standing in line. Di Marco travelled 713km by bus from the town of Puerto Ordaz to Caracas. For the second consecutive day, the 20-year-old student has been sleeping at a nearby square to avoid losing his spot in the queue. He should be travelling to Ecuador at the end of the month. He has been awarded a full scholarship to study performing arts, but if he doesn’t arrive in time it will be taken away. Without answers about the status of his application, which he has been processing since 2016, he’s starting to feel desperate. “I’ve thought about leaving without a passport, I can’t waste more time,” he says. Venezuelan nationals receive food from religious volunteers while they wait for an authorisation that will allow them to enter Peru The passport system began to fail two years ago. In theory, the process is easy. It’s done through a web page in which the citizen requests an appointment, attends the appointment and is given the passport within a couple of weeks. But often, users say, the website crashes and the appointment gets cancelled or people’s data just disappears from the system. “It’s as if I had never attended the appointment,” says Delia Cabral, 52, whose data disappeared from the website after she went to her meeting. The accountant has been waiting since May for her passport. Her daughter is waiting for her in Spain. Experts say that Caracas’s telecommunication infrastructure is one of the weakest in the region, so it is not surprising that high-traffic websites collapse. In July, a new head of Saime was named. He promised a complete renovation of the website, as well as a profound restructuring of the organisation. However, the system still seems to be failing. The passport agency has blamed shortages of materials, like paper and plastic, for the delays. Venezuela has been suffering from shortages of food, medicines and other basic goods for many years now. The lack of passports is just one of them. The legal price of a passport in Venezuela is 18 bolivars, or $0.30 (£0.23) at the black market exchange rate. However, tired of waiting, some Venezuelans choose to pay for the service of officials who can speed up the process for $1,000, at the very least. A prohibitively expensive amount for most Venezuelans,given the monthly minimum wage is $18. ------ This is an illegal practice for which several Saime officials have been arrested in recent months. The institution also blames those members of the “mafia” inside the passport agency for the delays. The economic and social crisis has become so unbearable that hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans consider escaping the country to be their only option – a feeling that has only increased over the past few months. President Nicolas Maduro denies the existence of a migration crisis and blames his critics for inflating the numbers. The government typically does not publish data, but the UN estimates that 2.3 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2015, especially to neighbouring countries like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. In August, the UN warned the migration exodus was reaching a “crisis moment”, akin to the situation in Mediterranean. Last month, Ecuador and Peru tightened their migration controls for Venezuelans, requiring them to show valid passports at the border. That decision left many Venezuelans who had been travelling without passports in limbo. The measure was later overturned. Over recent weeks, 11 Latin American countries agreed to allow Venezuelans to enter their countries even if their passports have expired. While this is a relief for those who haven’t been able to renew their travel documents, nothing changes for those who have never had a passport, like Jennyfer. “It makes no difference for me,” she says “I’m still stuck in here.”

Hello Matrix u want fix a Problem Flow this video maybe will help you Good Luck.

Foam rolling was once for professional athletes only. These days it’s hard to walk into a gym without tripping over somebody rolling around on a neoprene tube. Dedicated classes in hip New York gyms are frequented by the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Shakira. Forget protein shakers, resistance bands or Fitbits: foam rollers are this season’s must-have gym accessory. Read more Four cups of coffee a day linked to improved heart health, study finds The rise of foam rollers owes much to the Israeli engineer and physicist Moshe Feldenkrais, whose pioneering work on body movements to improve muscle function became po[CENSORED]r in the 1950s. A black belt in judo, Feldenkrais incorporated them into his system for physical improvement when he came across them in the US a couple of decades later. More recently, the American sports therapist Michael Clark helped introduce these accessories to the general po[CENSORED]tion with his 2001 book, Integrated Training for the New Millennium. The first US patent for a foam roller was filed as recently as 2004. For the uninitiated, the practice involves applying your own body weight to a foam cylinder, using small repetitive undulating movements to exert pressure on the muscle. The internet is full of guides on how to do this right: YouTube contains more than 600,000 videos that match the term; a quick hunt on a search engine returns about 40 million hits. Despite this, scientific evidence to support the practice remains surprisingly limited. So does it work – and if so, how? Most people understand that stretching before exercise is important; it loosens you up and improves your flexibility. But too much stretching – meaning upwards of 60 seconds – will weaken your muscles and could hamper your workout. One of foam rolling’s big selling points is that it can improve flexibility to a similar extent as stretching, but with an important added bonus – it doesn’t impair strength. Foam rolling can also improve performance if combined with stretching. This may be better than doing one or the other, but as yet the research evidence is inconclusive. Meanwhile, we can now say with confidence that foam rolling is better than doing nothing. Recent work from our lab at the University of Stirling, carried out along with Malcolm Fairweather of Sportscotland, tested the effect of foam rolling on a group of volunteers doing leg extension exercises. We found that it required less effort for them to complete the exercise after two minutes of foam rolling than after two minutes of rest. Thanks to this reduction in effort, volunteers who repeated this for three days were able to perform better leg extensions than those who did not foam roll each day. Foam rolling has also shown promise as a way of recovering from exercise, by reducing muscle soreness. Since muscle soreness can severely hinder healthy muscle function, managing this problem can help people perform better next time around. Beyond this, there is still much we don’t know. One big issue is that we are not still not sure how foam rolling works on the body. For years, it was regarded as a way of releasing tension from the soft connective tissue known as fascia that forms a kind of matrix around the entire human body – including muscles, bones, organs and nerves. Researchers have become sceptical about this, however: given the amount of force required to mani[CENSORED]te the fascia, many think it more likely that the pressure applied by foam rolling may be acting on the nervous system instead. The findings on using rolling to avoid muscle soreness provide additional evidence here. We know that this pain relief is not related to “warming” the muscles, while there is only limited evidence that foam rolling increases blood flow. Were either of these the case, it would suggest the benefit is coming from stimulating soft tissue in the area in question. But if we rule both of these out it suggests there must be a more global or neurological response taking place. All the research so far has looked at the immediate and short-term effects of foam rolling. Our understanding of the longer-term effects remains cloudy. So while we know that foam rolling both before and after taking exercise can complement your training programme, we can’t say for sure whether these benefits continue into the future. And while it has previously been shown that foam rolling has no negative effect on athletic performance in the short term, we still can’t say for certain that there are no detrimental long-term effects. We also don’t have enough evidence to say how best to use foam rollers. Researchers have adopted protocols that vary from between one and five bouts of foam rolling per exercise session, and from anywhere between five seconds and two minutes. - There is no suggestion that longer durations are better, so if in doubt, keep your rolling brief. On the other hand, researchers are finding that you need repeated bouts to increase your range of movement. So if flexibility is your goal, you should roll and repeat at least twice during a session – just make sure nobody trips over you while you’re doing it. Lewis Macgregor is a lecturer in sport, health and exercise science at the University of Stirling and Angus Hunter is a reader in exercise physiology at the University of Stirling. This article was originally published.

The 2019 Audi e-tron is set to go on sale in the second quarter of 2019. We got a test drive this week of the new all-electric crossover, so look for that report next week. For now, here's what you need to know. Size: It will be smaller than the Tesla Model X but bigger than the Jaguar I-Pace. It feels small behind the wheel thanks to a low center of gravity and quick, mechanical-feeling steering. And the electric power. Powertrain: The Audi e-tron comes with two motors -- one on each axle -- and a large plate of batteries in between. The combination delivers 402 hp (300 kw) and 489 lb-ft of torque. It can power each axle independently and uses brake torque vectoring to split power to the rear. Range: Audi claims the e-tron will get 248 miles of range, though that depends on driving style and myriad other factors. On the morning drive, I felt it dropped faster than expected, but in the afternoon the mileage driven vs. range expected was right on point. 2018 Audi e-tron GT concept debuts at LA auto show LOS ANGELES AUTO SHOW Audi e-tron GT concept previews eventual 590-hp Tesla fighter Audi's first battery-electric sedan made its debut at the LA Auto Show this week in concept form, following up on the reveal of the production-ready e-tron crossover weeks prior. Sharing tech with ... Regen: The 2019 Audi e-tron has three levels of regeneration. The first is basically just coasting, with a little bit of regen. The second level, selectable through the steering wheel paddles, adds a little more and the third almost puts you in one-pedal driving territory. The only way to tell -- other than feel -- is by a little hash mark in the gauge cluster power meter. It goes up to minus-0.3 gs of force in that top level. Going down a 10-kilometer hill, we regenerated almost 10 kilometers of range. Tech: The coolest bit of tech on the e-tron isn't coming to the United States, yet. Instead of sideview mirrors, it has two cameras that display those views in windows on the door panels. Like the rearview mirror camera that's proliferating across the market, it takes a lot of getting used to. That's mainly because your eyes are used to focusing at that point and at that depth. It does shrink blind spots to near-zero. Price: The 2019 e-tron, when it goes on sale next year, will start at $75,795 for the Premium Plus trim. The Prestige model, which adds a head-up display, driver assistance package, power door closers and more, comes in at $82,795, including $995 in destination. Check in next week for our in-depth first drive review.

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Abhishek Manu Singhvi also spoke about the ED raids linked to Robert Vadra. NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday hit out at the government over the ED raids against Robert Vadra's associates, alleging PM Modi dispensation was using "high-handed tactics" to threaten people as it was in a "state of panic of the highest degree" sensing defeat in polls. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi at a press conference held at the AICC headquarters in Delhi also alleged that the country has never seen such a "terror raj" in the "constitutional rule" of India. "We fought the British Raj, and the BJP would do well to know that the day of judgement will come for it," he said. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday carried out searches against three people linked to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra. "They are afraid of the Congress and its values. And, so they are threatening people and using high-handed tactics against those who are relatives of our leaders or associated with them," he alleged. "This is called character assassination by innuendos and insinuations. When you do not have facts, this is what they will do," the Congress leader said. Mr Singhvi said the BJP was in "state of panic of the highest degree" sensing rejection from the people in the elections. "Panic word would be an understatement, and all these raids and searches against various people is nothing but a ploy to divert the attention of people from real issues and the BJP's failures," he charged. COMMENT The ED carried out searches against the three people in connection with its probe into alleged "commissions received by some suspects in defence deals" and illegal assets stashed abroad, officials said on Friday. For the latest News & Live Updates on Election Results from each assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for updates.

Restaurants are playing an increasingly important role in the food culture of North Americans. In the United States, food prepared outside the home represents more than 50 per cent of the food dollar, or more than $800bn ($600bn) a year. Canadians spend $80bn annually in restaurants, spending almost 30 per cent of their food dollars in restaurants. They also buy a lot of prepared food for consumption at home. But the rate of growth in restaurant spending is greater than it is for stores. This spending has an impact on the food market in a variety of ways. Most importantly, however, restaurants are changing how we think about food and what we choose to eat. Restaurants make choices for consumers. They choose menu items and they decide how to prepare those items. Grocery stores want to give consumers as much choice and variety as possible, but this causes issues for restaurants. In a grocery store, for example, there may be many choices of eggs (white, brown, different sizes, organic, high omega 3, free-run, free-range and cage-free), breakfast sausages (beef, pork, turkey, enhanced-animal welfare, reduced antibiotic use, low sodium, mild or spicy) and English muffins (regular, whole wheat, multigrain, gluten-free and low sodium). These kits usually come with premium attributes (for example, ingredients with enhanced welfare and sustainable production attributes) that also increase awareness. Some food retailers are even opening restaurants (often termed grocerants) to offer more options for customers. Restaurant food delivery is also becoming more common. Uber Eats, SkipTheDishes and other services offer delivery from a much broader range of choices than the traditional pizza and Chinese food. This has not been without its hiccups. Some food doesn’t travel well, and using a third-party delivery service eliminates the restaurant’s control over quality and, therefore, the complete consumer experience. Read more Thousands of food businesses failing to meet hygiene standards Why it’s important to recognise multiple food systems in Africa School staff found paying for pupils’ food, toilet roll and tampons Smoke & Salt review: Can leeks be the new millennial food? Retail food delivery or order pickup is also becoming more common. We heard a lot about Amazon’s entry into the market and the acquisition of Whole Foods, but there are other well-established players around, and new ones entering the market too. Grocery delivery is difficult, particularly in the early days as routing and timing are complicated. This has lead more companies to follow the “click-and-collect” model where consumers order online and pick up their groceries at the store themselves. This also allows consumers to buy some of the fresh produce separately. The desire for variety and convenience is increasing the role that restaurants are playing in our food experience. More importantly, though, restaurants are also playing an increasing role in how we think about food. Restaurants, in fact, matter more than ever. Michael von Massow is an associate professor in food economics; Alfons Weersink is a professor at the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics; and Bruce Gregory McAdams is a professor in hospitality, food and tourism, all at the University of Guelph. This article was originally published on The Conversation

It is as well that Lotus was not founded a year or so earlier. For had we come to write about its 70th birthday in the early part of last year, we may not have found too much to celebrate. A glorious past, yes, but a stuttering present and highly uncertain future. But now – under new ownership and management, and with Phil Popham, who was instrumental in turning Jaguar Land Rover into such a success story in the early part of this decade, in a key role – it is fair to say its future has rarely, if ever, looked brighter. How bright? You need only look at what new proprietor Geely has done with another of its acquisitions, Volvo, to see the potential. During its tenure, Volvo has been catapulted from perennial also-ran status to being a truly aspirational brand with a world-class product line-up. For now, though, let’s celebrate the greatest Lotuses (and a few of the not so great ones) and the greatest drives we have had in them. For when it comes to Lotus, the drive has always been the thing and, whatever happens to the marque in the future, that’s how it must remain. Lotus greats You can argue the toss over when Lotus actually came into being. The 1948 date refers to Colin Chapman’s first car, which was a modified Austin Seven. But Lotus Engineering itself didn’t appear until 1952, the same year in which the Lotus Mk VI became the first to be sold to the public. Driven this week 7 DECEMBER 2018 FIRST DRIVE Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk 2018 UK review Hotrod SUV doesn’t know much in the way of delicacy and isn’t at all good... Nissan Leaf 2nd generation (2018) long-term review hero front 7 DECEMBER 2018 FIRST DRIVE Nissan Leaf long-term review The first Leaf was an EV pioneer. Can the new one make as big an impact? We... Suzuki Jimny 2018 road test review - hero front 7 DECEMBER 2018 CAR REVIEW Suzuki Jimny Was Suzuki's iconic miniature off-roader’s long-overdue overhaul worth... But our homage to its very greatest road cars begins in 1957 with the Lotus Seven, because it remains the most enduring sports car design still in production. Look at a modern Caterham and a 60-year-old Lotus and the architectural similarities are impossible to miss. It was the car that put Lotus on the map so far as road cars were concerned, for while Lotus was already building racers for Formula 1, Formula 2 and sports car racing (Chapman himself raced in a Lotus at Le Mans as early as 1955), the Seven developed the thinking behind the Mk VI sufficiently for it to be of equal appeal to club racers and recreational road users. Built in a factory behind the Station Hotel in Hornsey (a Jewsons the last time I looked), the spaceframe Seven with its aluminium body espoused pure Chapman thinking, especially in its ultra-lightweight construction. Weighing as little as 420kg, Sevens were frequently banned from racing because nothing else could keep up, or they were forced to race in classes of their own. Oddly enough, given the purity of its design, Chapman got bored of his game-changing miracle and sold all rights to its design to Graham Nearn of Caterham Cars in 1973. I expect that if he’d realised the car would still be going strong 45 years later, he might have thought twice about that. When you see the two cars together, it hardly seems possible that the Seven and Lotus Elite came from the same mind at the same time. But they did. Like Enzo Ferrari, Chapman regarded road cars as a means of financing his racing, and although Elites raced with great success, it was primarily for road use that they were intended. Innovation was everywhere: Audi used to boast in the 1980s that its 100 saloon had a world-beating drag coefficient of 0.30 – but the Elite measured 0.29 a quarter of a century earlier. Its rear suspension was the so-called Chapman strut that used the driveshaft as its lower link. Most notable, however, was that it was the very first car to be constructed around a glassfibre monocoque, making it ridiculously light for a closed, surprisingly spacious road car. True, it’s just about the last car in which you’d choose to crash, but back then, people didn’t think that way. It wasn’t a lack of demand so much as escalating production costs that killed off the Elite in 1963, by which time its successor, the Elan, was already on the market. The Elan is rightly regarded as Chapman’s masterpiece. It was introduced in 1962, 10 years after the foundation of Lotus Engineering, and its engineering continued to influence production Lotuses into the 21st century. The key to providing low-cost, lightweight construction was its backbone structure, a design that went on to endure on the Esprit until 2004. Glassfibre was used only for the bodywork. The result was a still superlight car, but better finished than the rather rudimentary Elite, available as convertible and with a hard-top and more practical and civilised, too. It was a formula that worked at once. By the time of its introduction, Lotus had the fastest F1 car in the world (the Lotus 25), the world’s fastest driver (Jim Clark) and the most enjoyable, affordable sports car on the market (the Elan). The Elan stayed in production in various guises (including a rebodied 2+2 version) until 1975, with more than 10,000 units made in total, 10 times the number of Elites that were built. It’s hard to believe the last Elans were sold in the same year that the Esprit was shown, for the wedge-shaped, mid-engined, Giorgetto Giugiaro-styled supercar looks like a car from another generation and possibly a different planet. It came as part of Chapman’s plan to drive Lotus relentlessly upmarket, and while the two other components of the plan – the second-generation Elite and Eclat – were less long lived, the Esprit had staying power. Why? ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ Bond connection undoubtedly helped (as did getting Lotus chassis guru Roger Becker to do the driving), but so did the fact that the car was gorgeous to look at and even better to drive. To this day, it remains one of the most exquisite-handling cars, never better than in either Sport 300 or GT3 guise. Yes, the fit and finish of the earlier cars were lamentable, right down to their Morris Marina door handles, but once on board, you’d find yourself forgiving its every foible. As Lotus contemplates its future, it is a replacement for the Esprit that should lead the charge forward. But it was a car far simpler and more affordable that got Lotus to where it is today. By 1996 and following the failure of the M100 Elan, Lotus was left with one car, the Esprit, and that was already 20 years old. Everything hung on the Elise and, boy, did it deliver. Back then, what Lotus needed was a car to remind everyone what had made Lotus great in the first place. A simple, affordable two-seat sports car that achieved lightness through innovation. And the Elise, with its bonded aluminium tub, was a car of which the late Colin Chapman would have been truly proud. Here was the real successor to the original Elan, a car that was more fun to drive than anything out there, with the purest steering, yet not so crude and impractical that it could only be used for short journeys on sunny days. The formula was an instant hit, so much so that, 22 years later, it and its Exige sibling remain the core components of the Lotus range. It, too, must be replaced in time and by a car inspired by exactly the same philosophy that created the Elan in the 1960s and Elise in the 1990s. Lotus duds 1989 Elan: Many defend the second-generation Elan to this day, but with an Isuzu engine, odd looks and, most controversial, front-wheel drive, it was always going to be a hard sell. It was made for just three years, before going back into limited production in 1994. Some were even sold as Kias. 1974 Elite: A dud? Not really, but an unlovely Lotus of inexact construction and compromised design. A not terribly spacious 2+2 that weighed over 1200kg with rather non-Lotus addenda such as automatic gears and air-con. A Lotus for those more interested in the image of Lotus than the driving experience. 2006 Europa S: The answer to a question too few asked, this watered-down Elise (actually based on a Vauxhall VX220 chassis) found very little favour either among the press or public and was abandoned after fewer than 500 had been sold. 1969 Seven S4: A Seven for the 1970s and an almost entirely new car whose plush fitments and weird styling led many to observe that the purity and visual appeal of the original had been lost. Sales were reasonable, albeit below target, and by the time the Elite was on the books, Chapman canned it.

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