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The Vanquish 25, debut project of former Jaguar design boss Ian Callum and his new Callum design group, has made its first public appearance at the Hampton Court Concours of Elegance. Callum is planning to build a batch of comprehensively rethought and re-engineered Aston Martin Vanquish V12s as the new business’s first bespoke car project. The Vanquish 25 project forms part of a series of R-Reforged edition cars fully endorsed by Aston Martin, with customers able to upgrade their existing car, or have R-Reforged source one for them. UK-based R-Reforged has previously worked with Aston Martin on other projects, and will play a key role in the Callum project's customer experience. Each finished car is expected to cost £550,000 including a sourced V12 Vanquish. Delivery of finished cars is due to start late this year and the full batch of 25 should be completed and delivered at the end of 2020. The Astons will be returned to bare metal and rebuilt from scratch in Callum’s new Warwick-based workshops. They will incorporate dozens of subtle and not so subtle changes, some of which Ian Callum has wanted to make since his original Vanquish design hit production in 2001 “There are things on the car I’ve always wanted to fix,” he said. “Now I have the chance.” One strong theme running through the whole car is a unique fabric and trim pattern that Ian Callum, a loyal Scot, calls his “abstract tartan”. It appears in the Vanquish in surprising places, such as air outlets and speaker grilles, as well as seating and trim panels and will be used on Callum cars in future. The partners at Callum have already built two Vanquish prototypes, one to show off their body and cabin developments and another to perfect a new suspension set-up that runs to bigger wheels and tyres, stiffer springs and dampers plus changes to anti-roll bars and suspension bushes. All cars also get larger-diameter carbon-ceramic brakes plus new 20in wheels that use the Vanquish’s original pattern but are now offset to improve stability and stance. Each V12 engine gets software, camshaft and exhaust changes to boost its power by around 60bhp to between 500bhp and 600bhp, depending on the model. A modern six-speed torque-converter automatic is offered, although many owners are expected to stick with the Vanquish’s original automated manual gearbox. Ian Callum’s “new old” Aston is still very recognisable as an original Vanquish but has many modern details. There’s a new-style front bumper and grille, the latter subtly framed with carbonfibre and its horizontal bars most prominent. The lights are new LED units and the old, round foglights (Callum calls them “frog eyes”) are dropped in favour of air scoops for the bigger front brakes. There are new-design exterior mirrors (“we’ve dropped the old boxing gloves”) plus handsome side skirts incorporating a four-notch design that will become a feature of future Callum cars. The exhaust’s back box has been reduced in size and incorporated into the rear bumper assembly to improve the efficiency of the rear diffuser and the car gets new LED tail-lights, an unusual and expensive feature (but necessary, Ian Callum insists). More subtle improvements abound. Special Michelin tyres carry the Callum tartan on their sidewalls. The side windows are framed with specially fabricated trim pieces (not the Jaguar cast-offs of the original). The interior is completely retrimmed over new architecture, with the emphasis on high-quality materials and execution. The new front seats adopt a more sporting profile and the tiny rear seats have been ditched in favour of better accommodation for those in the front. There’s a new screen-based HMI and a demountable Bremont watch is fitted into the centre of every fascia. Although Ian Callum left Jaguar only a couple of months ago, his design partners — David Fairbairn, Adam Donfrancesco and Tim Bird — have been working on the project for much longer. “We want to get back to making things,” said Ian Callum. “The idea is to do bespoke projects for customers as individuals.” “I like that the Callum team’s first project is based on the original V12 Vanquish designed by Ian," Aston Martin's Chief Creative Officer Marek Reichman said. "Aston Martin Lagonda is very proud of the cars created during Ian’s time and they are an important part in both our heritage and evolution.” The original Vanquish, born from a 1998 concept designed by Ian Callum before he joined Jaguar, introduced a new era of Aston design and construction in 2001 that led directly to the successful years of the DB9 and smaller V8 Vantage. The car, although handsome, never found buyers as readily as others and was discontinued in favour of a new, DB9-based Vanquish in 2007. Donor Astons for the Callum treatment will come either from existing owners or the company will source suitable cars itself. A fairly restricted series of colours and interior treatments will be offered: Ian Callum and his colleagues aren’t keen to over-decorate their cars or offer wide colour or trim palettes. They hope customers will accept ”design guidance” and customer reaction so far seems to back that up. “Put it this way,” said the designer bluntly: “If we don’t like it, we won’t build it. Opinion: This is design done differently It’s easy to view Ian Callum’s new design house, Callum, as one of those places that set out to change everything about a car, and to charge a lot for doing it, for very little rhyme or reason. Such places exist. But Warwick-based Callum already looks very different. This first Vanquish project shows what they’re about: a design group with the restraint and good taste of those used to setting the best OEM (original equipment manufacturer) standards, freed from big group conservatism to display originality and creativity that has had to be masked. Ian Callum has had a burning ambition to improve the original Vanquish for at least a decade and has tackled the problem with subtlety and restraint. This is going to be a beautiful car, not ‘hot-rodded’ like so many aftermarket conversions but improved, updated and made more beautiful. The original designer will preserve the soul of his original fine car and he has other similar plans in mind.

(He twisted me like a corkscrew as he dragged me to the river bottom in a death roll) In April this year, I was diving for fossils in Peace river in Florida, not far from where I teach marine science at a private naval academy. At 24, I’d been diving in the area for six years without any problems, and was guiding the dive for two friends, including Jake Koehler, who films videos of his underwater finds for his YouTube channel, Dallmyd. Because of the danger from alligators, we’d usually drop anchor on a particular spot, and bang on the boat and throw rocks to disturb them, as they tend to avoid contact with humans. But we hadn’t got much on film that day, so we decided to take a chance and do something unusual: instead of staying in one area, we jumped in the river and drifted backwards with the current. I drifted into a very narrow channel, about a quarter of a mile ahead of the others, wearing my usual scuba gear: an oxygen tank, a lifejacket and weight belt. I suddenly felt an intense pressure on my left ankle, and, for a split second, I thought it was Jake messing about. We’d been joking earlier that my black wetsuit made me look like bait – the other two were wearing camouflage wetsuits. But then the pressure became unbelievably intense, and I realised it was a gator. He was already twisting me like a corkscrew as he dragged me to the bottom, in what I knew as a marine biologist was a death roll – almost always lethal. My survival instinct kicked in: I’ve never known such mental clarity. The water was only 8ft deep, so I inflated my lifejacket, and kicked with my free leg towards the surface, dragging the gator with me. I could feel him pulling my leg down, and it felt as if I was being ripped in half. As we broke the water, I saw he was around 8-9ft long, his tail lashing in a frenzy as he tried to roll with me again. I knew that if he took me back down, he would twist my foot off. Unlike victims of a shark attack, most people attacked by gators drown rather than bleed to death; my scuba gear had bought me valuable time. But my biggest fear now was that my regulator, which delivered oxygen, would be ripped out of my mouth, or that I’d become trapped beneath a rock or the roots of a tree. I hammered the gator’s head with my free foot as hard as I could, but his jaws were clamped around my ankle with a force equivalent to that of a T rex. I understood that I would only be able to free myself if the gator tried to get a better grip on me with a bite readjustment, so I kept hammering, forcing him to reposition. The pressure on my ankle eased for just a second, and I took my chance. When his jaws clamped down again, this time he got a mouthful of my flipper. Kicking with all my strength, I got my foot out of the flipper and swam for my life to the riverbank. Gators don’t like prey that makes their life difficult, so he didn’t pursue me. I sat panting on the bank in shock, waiting for my friends to surface. His teeth had ripped through two layers of my wetsuit, cutting deep into my flesh, but it was the crush injury that caused the most damage. My ankle was twice its normal size. When my buddies surfaced five minutes later, they had no idea what had happened. Between them, they helped me back to the car, which was parked an hour away, and took me to hospital. Astonishingly, nothing was broken. The doctors said I’d make a full recovery. Medics came from all over the hospital to take a look at me: gator attacks are surprisingly rare, with fewer than 400 recorded in Florida over the past 70 years; few people survive a death roll. Jake posted the aftermath of the attack on YouTube, and, a week later, another diver contacted me, saying he’d found my bright-yellow flipper. The bite marks were massive – it made me realise what a close call it had been. I don’t blame the gator: I was on his turf, and I disturbed him. The attack hasn’t put me off diving; I was back in the river again a few weeks later, posting my adventures on Instagram at @thinkseek – though now I’m careful to stick to an area I’ve already scouted. It’s important to me that young people in particular recognise that we humans are just one part of an extraordinary natural world, and that we can out-think these magnific

Paris Tutankhamun exhibition is a record-breaking hit – but scarabs, pharaohs and man-eating monsters have been thrilling us for centuries Paris’s current mania for Tutankhamun should come as no surprise. The Grande Halle de la Villette exhibition of 150 objects found in the tomb of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh is now France’s most-visited exhibition ever, having attracted over 1.3 million visitors. Many of the objects on show – “wonderful things”, in Howard Carter’s words, including mini-coffins, a gilded bed and a calcite vase – have left Egypt for the first time for the Treasures of the Pharaoh exhibition, which will move to London’s Saatchi Gallery in November. The exhibition’s po[CENSORED]rity echoes the wave of “Tut-mania” that swept the west almost 100 years ago when Carter first discovered the boy-king’s tomb. Suddenly everyone seemed interested in Egyptology, evident in the fashions, arts, culture and advertising of the time, and most enduringly in art-deco architecture such as the Chrysler building in New York – especially its distinctive elevator doors – and the Carreras Cigarette Factory in London, with its line of sleek black cats guarding the entrance. US president Herbert Hoover named his dog King Tut, and there were calls for the extension of the London Underground’s Northern Line that linked Tooting and Camden Town to be named Tutancamden. There had been a similar wave of interest in the 19th century following Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt and Syria, which included a group of scientists and other experts – one of whom discovered the Rosetta Stone during the trip. I can well understand this fascination; an Egyptian exhibition in London in 2010 transformed what became my novel The Weighing of the Heart. The book’s narrator, Nick, is a young British man who steals a work of art from the study of his rich landladies on New York’s Upper East Side. The stolen piece is an ancient Egyptian scene, and as the stress of the theft starts to work on Nick and his girlfriend Lydia, its imagery starts to come to life around them, although it’s unclear whether this is really happening or is all in Nick’s head. But originally the artwork they steal wasn’t an Ancient Egyptian scene at all; it was a piece of 1960s pop art. Not long after I had started working on the book I visited an exhibition at the British Museum called The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, about what the ancient Egyptians believed happened to you when you die, and had a moment of inspiration. The Egyptians believed in a ceremony called “the weighing of the heart”, similar in some ways to the Christian idea of St Peter standing at the gates of Heaven, deciding whether or not you have lived a worthy enough life to come in. In the Egyptian version, Anubis, the god of embalming, presides over a set of scales with the heart of the dead person on one side and a feather on the other. If the heart is in balance with the feather, you go to Heaven, which the Egyptians called the Field of Reeds. But if your heart is heavier than the feather, you get eaten by a the Devourer, a creature with the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion and the back legs of a hippopotamus The Ancient Egyptians believed the heart – not the brain – was the home of a person’s mind and conscience and memory. One thing they were afraid of was that the heart would try to grass you up during this ceremony – that it would speak up and reveal your worst sins to Anubis. You could prevent this from happening by keeping hold of a little “heart scarab”. I was spellbound by this ornate mythology. I loved the way it was so familiar in its overall concept but so strange in its details. And I suddenly realised that the painting Nick and Lydia should steal should be an image of this ceremony, the weighing of the heart. It was fitting because the book is essentially about guilt and innocence; it’s about you weighing up as a reader how much you trust Nick as a narrator, and it’s about the people around him weighing up how much they trust him. I hope that I found a way to knit all that imagery into the book effectively. Once I’d settled on this, there was a strange coincidence – only slightly less dramatic than the so-called “curse of Tutankhamun”, the mysterious deaths of a number of people connected with the pharaoh’s tomb. When looking for someone to create the book’s artwork, I discovered an artist named James Puttnam who used to work for the British Museum and had become quite well-known for his reproductions of ancient Egyptian scenes. I ended up basing my artist, Edward Hazlemere, partially on him. And at one point in The Weighing of the Heart Nick recalls a school trip to the British Museum, suggesting he may have stolen one of protective heart scarabs from there. I wanted to get the details right, so I looked through the British Museum’s collection of scarabs on their website and identified the one that best fitted the bill. I went to the museum to take a look at it in person. But when I got there and found the case where this scarab was supposed to be, the space for it was empty. Instead of the object itself there was just a note on the wall that said: “Heart scarab (lost)”. Just like in my book, the scarab was gone. I’ll be at the Treasures of the Pharaoh exhibition when it arrives in London to see if the one buried with Tutankhamun has fared any better.

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Related Thread The expression of the joy of Eid Summary of Eid al-Adha Eid al-Adha Eid al-Adha Hajj is a major pillar of Islam, the fifth pillar, and Eid al-Adha comes on the tenth day of Dhul-Hijjah every year. The day of Arafah comes before him, where Muslims stand on Mount Arafat to perform the basic pillar of Hajj, and celebrate the day after Eid al-Adha, where the pilgrimage continues until the twelfth day of Dhul-Hijjah, the third day of Eid al-Adha. A number of religious works, other than the rituals of Hajj, meet on Eid al-Adha, where Muslims offer sacrifices from cattle and distribute meat to the poor and needy. This is called Eid al-Adha, also called the Day of Sacrifice, in which the year of Abraham, peace be upon him, was slaughtered. The ram, which Allah the Almighty redeemed by our master Ishmael, becomes the slaughter of the sacrifices later from the basics of Eid al-Adha, which Muslims in various parts of the earth to receive great reward. On the Eid al-Adha, pilgrims stoned the devil to become defeated and expelled from the mercy of Allaah. There is no greater sorrow than the devil in the Eid al-Adha. Their mothers, innocent of all sin and sin, after roaming the old house, cheered, grown up, and answered the call of God One of the most beautiful rituals of Eid al-Adha and the most wonderful are the takbeers of mosques on the morning of Eid, and Eid al-Adha prayer, in which adults and children meet topped them with joy, their hearts are cheerful, and they wear the most beautiful clothes they have, to enlarge the takbeers of Eid, and start congratulating each other, and go all the discounts Like they weren't. Visits begin between relatives, wombs and friends, and the young rejoice in their Eid, and give more and distribution to the poor and needy, to give them candy, meat, sweets, and cakes Eid. No matter how sad the soul is, Eid will continue to be an opportunity for highness of the soul and soul, and a good space for the heart to rejoice, because Eid al-Adha is the feast of forgiveness of sins, and the return to God Almighty, as if spirits open a new page on this day, to begin with its Creator with a stronger spirit and determination, in which goodness Much, there is nothing greater than the joy of the performance of all his statutes, to come on the day of the prize, the day of Eid, to rejoice in it and renew the determination and the will to achieve the best.