the times | Saturday September 5 2020 2GM 45
Wo r l d
In case locals needed reminding that
Amsterdam is sinking, the quayside of
one of its historic canals collapsed into
the water this week.
The failure of the 50ft section of the
Grimburgwal near the famous Dam
Square underlines a growing crisis.
Bridges and walls built over six
centuries on wooden pilings are now
often in a parlous state, meaning the
city is slowly sliding into the Amstel
river and Zuiderzee complex of lakes
recovered from the North Sea.
Sharon Dijksma, Amsterdam’s depu-
ty mayor responsible for maintaining
infrastructure, admitted the collapse
was a symptom of a wider problem
threatening the UN World Heritage
Site. “It is the same in Venice where the
water is rising, there is climate change
and where there is heavy traffic on the
canal quaysides,” she said.
Amsterdam has similar structural
problems to Venice because it is built on
Cracks and sinkholes are appearing in
125 miles of Amsterdam’s quaysidesThe latest novel by one of France’s most
distinguished philosophers culminates
in an account of a spirited conversation
with his no less eminent father.
Readers seeking enlightenment
about intellectual themes or great
thinkers, however, are sure to be
disappointed.
Raphaël Enthoven, 44, the essayist
and television host, tells how he
screamed insults at his father and fel-
low philosopher, Jean-Paul, 71, in an
argument over the model Carla Bruni.
She had dumped Jean-Paul and started
an affair with his son.
The episode is recounted by Ent-
hoven in an autobiographical novel
that has caused consternation among a
French intellectual elite that he depicts
as pompous, duplicitous, shallow and
more interested in sex than sophism.
The novel, Le Temps Gagné (Time
Made), has gone down badly among the
Parisian writers, actors and artists who
are easily recognisable behind their fic-
tional names — foremost among them
being Enthoven’s father, a renowned
author.
Enthoven tells how Jean-Paul left his
mother to re-marry before cheating on
his second wife “as much as a man from
the end of the 1980s could do”. He left
his second wife too and had a series of
affairs before starting a relationship
with Ms Bruni in 2000. Enthoven
writes that he was particular-
ly struck by his father’s “lat-
est conquest”. He admired
Ms Bruni’s simplicity, intel-
ligence, grace and spon-
taneity. What he most
admired, however, was
“her bottom”. He says
in a 23-line homage: “I
Carla Bruni moved in
with Raphaël
Enthoven and had a
son with him. She
was previously his
father’s lover
journal Archäologische Informationen
has provoked a rancorous dispute.
The disc was illegally excavated in
1999 with a cache of Bronze Age arte-
facts by detectorists near the town of
Nebra. They sold it on the black market
for about £13,000 but the disc was found
three years later in a police sting.
Harald Meller, chief
archaeologist for the Sax-
ony-Anhalt region,
dated it to 1600BC but
Rupert Gebhard, of
Munich’s state archae-
ology collection, and
Rüdiger Krause, of
Goethe University, pro-
pose that it was forged
under the influence of Iron
Age Celtic culture a millenni-
um later. Professor Meller sug-
gested they were motivated by revenge
for a dispute over the authenticity of
golden artefacts found in Bavaria.Oldest map of the cosmos
is brought down to earth
Germany
Oliver Moody BerlinAmsterdam gets that sinking feeling
timber poles which can date back to the
13th century. Canals were dug into the
soft swamp soil of the Amstel and its es-
tuary with timbers driven down into the
mud as a foundation for buildings and
walls.
Cracks and sinkholes are appearing
in about 125 miles of quaysides and 800
bridges need constant surveillance
because they are at risk of collapse.
“The quaysides and bridges were
originally built for horses and carriages.
Not for the cars or heavy lorries whichuse them now,” Ms Dijksma said.
“Structure built on timbers is
vulnerable and most of the times when
we investigate what we see is that they
are even in a worse state than what we
expected.”
Until last year, the city’s authorities
tended to turn a blind eye to the slow
but mostly invisible decline despite five
years of internal warnings. But this
year, AT5, the local television station,
highlighted the fears of one diver who
refused to carry out a bridge inspection
as it was known to be close to collapse.
Over the next three years, 27 bridges
will be rebuilt and three miles of canals
renovated at a cost of more than
€450 million. Replacing the quayside
walls and bridges is made harder by
houseboats limiting the space to work.
“You are not re-elected because you
maintain your canals and bridges. You
are re-elected because you build new
bridges — and then you put your name
on it,” Ms Dijksma said. “Maintenance
is not sexy. If we don’t do this and
protect our city, it will collapse.”Netherlands
Bruno Waterfield Brussels
Nine centuries before the dawn of writ-
ten literature, an ingenious smith in
what is now central Germany took a
circle of bronze and turned it into an
intricate map of the heavens.
That is the official story of
the Nebra sky disc, one of
the most spectacular
archaeological discov-
eries of recent decades
and possibly the oldest
systematic depiction of
the stars and planets.
Yet this account has
been challenged by two
distinguished professors
who suggest the artefact is
about a thousand years younger
than once thought. Their study in thethree year
Hara
arch
ony
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o
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um later. P
gested theywerevens.
y of
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ors
ct is
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ir study in theThe Nebra sky disc was found in 1999
Philosopher and
father go to war
over Carla Bruni
France
Adam Sage Paris
had never seen anything like it.” When
he made his feelings known to Ms
Bruni she left his father for him.
Enthoven was married at the time
but promptly ditched his wife “with the
guilty coldness of a human relations
director handling a bankruptcy in the
knowledge that he himself has a golden
parachute”.
He moved in with Ms Bruni and they
had a son, Aurélien, before they too
split. She went on to marry Nicolas
Sarkozy in 2008 when he was president
of France.
Not surprisingly the novel has upset
Jean-Paul Enthoven, who promptly
announced that he was “in mourning”
and wanted nothing more to do with his
son. Other figures of the Parisian elite
are said to be miffed at their portrayal,
including the flamboyant philosopher
Bernard Henri-Lévy, 71, who is also the
father of Enthoven’s first wife, Justine.
Enthoven describes his former
father-in-law as a “narcissistic guinea-
pig”. He claims that Henri-Lévy’s
works, idolised by the French establish-
ment, are full of “sentences without
verbs, useless enumerations, and the
style of an axe”. If that’s not enough, he
adds: “His vanity has protected him
from reality for... the last 30 years since
he was on the front page of The Times.”
The author is equally dismissive of
Henri-Lévy’s daughter, his wife of four
years. He says he spent much of the
time with his mistresses. Henri-
Lévy and Justine Lévy,
45, an eminent novel-
ist, have declined to
comment.
The work ap-
pears to be part
of a literary
tradition. In
2004 Lévy
published Ri-
en de Grave
(Nothing Se-
rious), topping
Europe’s best-
seller lists. She
described it as a
parallel of her life.A
model
with an
angular
face
and
thick eyebrows
has become the
focus of a heated
debate in Italy
over the nature of
beauty (Philip
Willan writes).
Armine
Harutyunyan, 23,
from Armenia,
was chosen by
Gucci to introduce
its spring/summer
2020 collection in
Milan a year ago.
Last month she
returned to the
social media
limelight after it
was claimed,
inaccurately, that
Gucci had
included her in a
list of the world’s
sexiest women.
The rumour led to
criticism about
her looks.
The model, who
lives in Yerevan
and is also a
graphic designer,
said she had been
taken aback by
the sudden attacks
on her “ugliness”.
“I don’t know
why this has
happened, and I
can’t prevent
people from
talking, but I can
ignore them,” she
told La Repubblica
this week.
She thanked
Alessandro
Michele, the
creative director
of Gucci, for
giving her her first
break in fashion.
“I love his open
vision and I don’tthink it’s just a
way of getting
people talking: his
approach has
changed fashion.”
Asked what she
saw when she
looked in the
mirror, Ms
Harutyunyan said:
“I see a person
who is more than
a face, who has
interests, things to
say and to do. And
who has no time
for people who
want to bring her
down.”
Mr Michele,
who apologised
last year after a
Gucci turtleneck
jumper was seen
as racist, has been
credited with
leading a drive
towards greater
inclusivity in the
fashion industry,
using models with
Down’s syndrome,
vitiligo and
irregular teeth in
campaigns. “I like
things that are not
well understood,”
he said last year.
The Italian
novelist Jonathan
Bazzi defended
Gucci’s choice.
People who
insulted models’
looks were “living
in the wrong
decade”, he wrote
on Twitter.
Another online
commentator was
more cynical.
“Such a lot of free
publicity,” Alberto
Cantaloni wrote.
“My sincere
compliments to
those responsible
for promoting the
Gucci brand.”Face of fashion
has Italy talking
about beauty
Armine
Harutyunyan
sparked debate
after appearing
on the catwalk
for Gucci
during Milan
Fashion Week
last year