Key Speaker for NSPCC "Turning the tide on abuse in Blackpool" at Stonyhurts College.

As patron member of the NSPCC it was a pleasure to be invited as a key speaker to Stonyhurst College to 

raise awareness about the good work being done in Blackpool and the current appeal to raise £2.5 million over the next 5 years. 

The NSPCC exists to end cruelty to children. It is there to protect children, to stand up for their rights, to listen to them, help them when they need it and take action for them to ensure they can look forward to better and brighter futures. I am incredibly proud to support their vital work with children, young people and families here in the North West.

The NSPCC recently announced their new approach to ending cruelty, which will see them developing groundbreaking services directly to children delivered from centres across the UK, and I am delighted that in Lancashire our centre will be in Blackpool.  It is clear why the NSPCC needs a strong presence in the town for the following reasons:-

·      The town has a high population density which means we can reach more children and families.

·      In 2010, Blackpool was rated the 6th most deprived town in the country; the 2011 Multiple Deprivation index is likely to rate them the most deprived town.

·      To date in 2011/2012 Blackpool has more children subject to child protection plans than their statistical neighbours/northwest counterparts. This is higher than average in England.

·      More than 45% of children on child protection plans are registered under the category of neglect alone.

·      Blackpool has a high population of Looked after Children; this is significantly higher than their statistical neighbours/northwest counterparts and higher than average in England.

The Blackpool Service Centre will be at the forefront of child protection practice, pioneering new work for children, including therapeutic work with young people affected by alcohol and substance misuse, and preventing non-accidental head injuries in babies under one. The newly created centre will work alongside the NSPCC’s national services for young people, including ChildLine and the NSPCC Helpline, which in 2011 made 20,546 referrals involving more than 40,000 children & the new ChildLine Schools service, which aims to reach out to 500,000 children of primary school age by 2016.  By Easter in Lancashire the Schools Service programme will have been delivered in 30 schools, and to over 1700 children. Nationally we have delivered to 500 schools, and to over 36,000 children.

NSPCC will be developing new projects for children that demonstrate how best to protect them from abuse and will rigorously evaluate that work so that they can continuously improve the services for children and leverage their knowledge and experience to enhance child protection everywhere. This evidence will also be used rigorously to influence positive change for all children across the UK through public awareness and campaigning activity.

As I said at the start, I am incredibly proud to be associated with the work of the NSPCC and I would like you all to join me, by thinking about how you can help those desperate children, young people and families in Blackpool and across Lancashire tonight either personally, through your company or by joining me on a Fundraising Board to drive this £2.5m appeal forward over the next 5 years.

Please help the NSPCC Turn the Tide on Abuse in Blackpool.

Luxury Alliance Launch @ Kensington Palace 15th December 2011

The Launch of Luxury Alliance a brand consultancy and marketing company which was held at the Royal Kensington Palace with equally important guests and friends alike. For more information about Luxury Alliance please see the link below.

Peter Virdee & HRH Prince Sheikh Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuaimi

Peter Virdee & Daniel Caltagirone

Victoria Christian & Peter Virdee

Lance, Peter Virdee, Alexander Burke & Rubba Shaikh

Peter Virdee, Francis Card, Lisa Tse and the one and only Master Tse.

http://tradonne.tv/video/fashion/-luxury-alliance-at-kensington-palace---official-launch-with-hofit-golan--fashiontv---ftv/

http://alexandra-burke.net/displayimage.php?album=623&pid=11203#top_display_media

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/CyvRG6MG-km/World+Premiere+Luxury+Alliance

http://www.thesorority.org/wisdom/a-royal-affair

http://www.luxuryalliance.com/

Andy Warhol Exhibition - Porto Cervo, Sardinia - 3rd July 2011

Summer 2011 in Porto Cervo Sardinia at the opening of the RUDOLF BUDJA GALLERY & COLONNA PEVERO HOTEL whilst exhibiting a wide selection of magnificent Andy Warhol portraits. 

During his own lifetime ANDY WARHOL was considered the incarnation of the “pop” artist. Today this reputation is stronger than ever and Warhol’s artworks have been increasing in importance and value dramatically in recent years. Warhol made standardization the theme of his art and limited it to the distanced presentation of banal objects from the consumer and media worlds. His idols, like Marilyn and Mao, were not presented as human beings made of flesh and blood but as the products of a commercial world.

Following his most celebrated statement that “in the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes”, Andy Warhol begun in the ‘60’s to produce photography derived paintings of famous people. He took faces from mass media, banal in their newspaper everydayness, and transformed them into paintings and prints, portraying in this fashion celebrities from arts and politics, contributing to the process of making them true icons of the 20th century.

After critics finally greeted his Factory as an appropriate artistic venue, the Warhol mania exploded in New York and all the fashionable, but still common, people wanted to redeem their 15 minutes of fame by getting their portrait depicted by Andy. The artist was in fact fascinated with the process of the “celebrification of nobodies” which marks the beginning of an era in which media attention became the new mirror of the individual’s self-perception.

"Everything is sort of artificial. I don’t know where the artificial stops and the real starts." A.W.

ABOUT ANDY WARHOL  

Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh in 1928. In 1945 he majored in pictorial design at the Carnegie University. Upon graduation, Warhol moved to New York where he worked as an illustrator for several magazines including Vogue and the New Yorker and did advertising and window displays for big retail stores. Prophetically, his first assignment was for Glamour magazine for an article titled “Success in New York”. 

Throughout the 50s, Warhol enjoyed a successful career as a commercial artist experimenting with comic-like artworks. He came in contact with the famous gallery owner Leo Castelli, who revealed that Roy Lichtenstein had presented his comics there only a couple of weeks before.

Warhol was forced to find his own style, finally making standardization the basic theme of his art by creating distant images of banal products of the consumer world. Colour only contributes to increase the unreality of a given image based on an actual photograph, such as with the screen prints of “Disasters” or the ”Electric Chair” series. His icons “Elvis” or “Marilyn” don’t show human beings but products of a commercial world. In 1952 the artist had his first individual show at the Hugo Gallery and his first group show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956.

The 60s was an extremely prolific decade for Warhol. Appropriating images from popular culture, Warhol created many paintings that remain icons of 20th century art, such as the Campbell’s Soup Cans, Disasters and Marilyn’s. He was the first involving highest quality into the printmaking process and set the basis of POP: reproducible art affordable for everyone. 

All at once Warhol decided to stop painting and started making several 16mm films, which have become underground classics such as Chelsea Girls, Empire and Blow Job. In 1968, Valerie Solanis, founder and sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) walked into Warhol’s studio, known as the factory, and shot the artist. The attack was nearly fatal.

At he start of the 70ies, Warhol began publishing Interview magazine and renewed his focus on painting. Works created in this decade include Mao’s, Sculls, Torsos and Shadows and many commissioned portraits. He also published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. Firmly established as a major 20th-century artist and international celebrity, Warhol exhibited his work extensively in museums and galleries around the world. 

Famous artworks of the early 80s were the Retrospectives and the Reversal series. He also created two cable television shows. His paintings include The Last Supper, Rorschach’s and in return to his first great theme of Pop, a series called Ads. Warhol also engaged in a series of collaborations with younger artists, including Jean Michel Basquiat, F. Clemente and K. Haring. 

Following a routine gall bladder surgery, Andy Warhol died February 22, 1987. More than 2000 people attended the memorial mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. In 1989 the Modern Museum of Modern Art inn New York had a major retrospective of his works, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh in May 1994. It took another decade to remember the great achievements of Warhol, when major retrospectives of his work were held at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and Berlin (2000) followed by a show at the Tate Modern in London in 2001.

CURATOR 

RUDOLF BUDJA GALLERY is one of the leading art galleries worldwide dealing with Andy Warhol.

HOST 

Located in Porto Cervo, on the amazing Pevero Bay, the Colonna Pevero Hotel is one of the newest and most prestigious five star resorts in the enchanting Emerald Coast of Sardinia. The village of Porto Cervo is the most luxurious holiday destinations in Europe founded by Prince Karim Aga Khan IV who laid the foundation stone for this outstanding area of “Costa Smeralda” together with the beer millionaire Patrick Guinness in the 1960’s. 

Jaguar Academy of Sport Annual Awards 2011 - 27 November 2011

One of the most prestigious landmark hotels in London no other then the one and only "The Savoy hosted The Jaguar Academy of Sport 2011 Annual Awards, anchored by James Corden and Kirsty Gallacher which celebrated some of the most inspirational British sporting performances over the past year.

2011 Road World Champion Mark Cavendish was named 'Most Inspirational Sportsman of the Year' at the prestigious 2011 Jaguar Academy of Sport Annual Awards. A big thank you to the Jaguar Team for inviting me to be part of history in the making.

Peter Virdee & Denise Lewis

                                                                        

http://www.jaguaracademyofsport.co.uk

ATP Tennis Finals - 25 November 2011

What an evening Best Of The Best only the best eight singles players and best eight doubles teams of the season qualify for the prestigious Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which was staged at The O2 arena in London for a third straight year in 2011. Roger Federer won a record-breaking sixth circuit finale title in 2011 with victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the championship match. What an evening it was and many thanks to my hosts Barclays Capital for the very kind invitation.

Tribute to MF Husain: Art Exhibition - 15 November 2011

MF Husain and Peter Virdee

MF Husain dubbed the Picasso of India who sadly died in London on 9th June 2011, aged 95 however myself along with others met in London to celebrate his life and works. Close friends of M.F. Husain, who have collected his works for many decades, held a very private and very subtle exhibition last night of a couple of dozen of his paintings at the Royal Academy in London.
The paintings were full of colour and dash and included not only Husain’s trademark horses but also Hindu deities as well as family and witty self-portraits. Collectively they did look amazing, all present agreed.
It was an honour to be involved in this event but furthermore to have met the legend and to have spent some evenings in his company.

Masterpiece 2011

I was fortunate enough to be invited to a gathering which attracts some great people and exhibits all things fantastic from whether you're into wine, sporting memorabilia or classic cars, the London gathering of art-lovers and foodies will be exhibiting pieces ranging from a 1961 Aston Martin DB4 GT to a one-of-a-kind Vacheron Constantin Watch.

The last Masterpiece fair saw Sirs Michael Caine, Mick Jagger and Roger Moore assemble to admire the finest collector's items and decorative arts.

www.masterpiecefair.com

Morgan Stanley Roundtable Lunch with John Paulson - 14 June 2011

Attended a very interesting Lunch hosted by the international financial institution Morgan Stanley and a discussion with the one and only multi billionaire John Paulson.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paulson.


Had some interesting predictions for the future and the timescales for how long this financial crisis is going to last but in any event it’s a learning curve for everyone – Survival of the fittest in my opinion!