Entitled "Cock and Bull," this showpiece by British artist Damien Hirst towers above diners at Tramshed, which only serves chicken and steak.

DAMIEN HIRST

Entitled "Cock and Bull," this showpiece by British artist Damien Hirst towers above diners at Tramshed, which only serves chicken and steak.

Internationally renowned British artist Damien Hirst has created an art piece for a London restaurant in which a whole Hereford cow and cockerel are preserved in formaldehyde in a steel and glass tank, smack dab in the middle of the dining room.

Called "Cock and Bull," the showpiece towers above diners at Tramshed which -- surprise -- serves only steak and whole roasted chicken.

Like a giant aquarium mounted on a TV stand, the art installation is an extension of Hirst's Natural History, a collection of preserved animals he's been creating since 1991 -- arguably his most famous series. Hirst also created a painting for the restaurant opening entitled "Beef and Chicken" which hangs on the mezzanine level and depicts the 1990s cartoon characters "Cow and Chicken."

In the basement level, the Cock ‘n' Bull gallery showcases a rotating art exhibit every six weeks. The first exhibition Quantum Jumping features art work themed around "jumping into a parallel dimension," and runs until July 1.

The classically British menu by chef and restaurateur Mark Hix, meanwhile, is conducive to family-style dining with whole roasted, free-range chickens or marbled sirloin steaks, both served with fries. Appetizers include Yorkshire pudding with whipped chicken livers, cauliflower salad, and smoked Cornish mackerel with beets and horseradish.

It's not unusual for restaurants to house the collections of famous and interesting artists, given the synergy between food and ambiance. Pierre Gagnaire's eponymous restaurant, in Paris, for instance, houses works from the Galerie Lelong, while Wolfgang Puck has also turned his restaurant space into an exhibit for a roster of rotating artists at his CUT steakhouse in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, restaurants like Eric Ripert's Le Bernardin in New York, Jason Atherton's Pollen Street Social in London and Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Spice Market in London have been shortlisted in the Restaurant & Bar Design Awards this year.

Edward Burtynsky Photographs Farming in Monegros Spain

© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London Dryland Farming #13, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2010

Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky is having a London moment. Not only are his familiar works on the oil crisis on view but he is also exhibiting a new series examining the impact of long-term farming in Monegros, Spain.

© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London Dryland Farming #21, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2010

These photographs are looking at the tradition of dryland farming carried out over many generations in the north-eastern part of Spain. It's an agricultural region where the land is semi-arid, sparsely populated and prone to both droughts and high winds. The land is made up of sedimentary rock, gypsum, and clay-rich soil. The photographs show the impact of these conditions, as well as man's expanding foot print.

© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London Dryland Farming #8, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2010

Burtynsky is shooting the photos from a helicopter, two thousand feet up: so high that there are almost no details to be identified. The topography looks like an abstract painting.

© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London Dryland Farming #27, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2010

Despite a scarcity of water, generations of farmers have continued to farm, so the photos are a contrast between nature's untamed forces and man's attempts to harness it. The cracks and crevices form writhing lines with deep earthy tones.

© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers, London Dryland Farming #31, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2010

Strawberry farms suck Spain dry

"If the Doñana park were a patient, it would be on the point of entering the intensive care unit," is how Eva Hernandez, the World Wildlife Fund's water expert in Spain, graphically describes the current state of western Europe's most important wetland. And one of the culprits for its critical condition just happens to be that delicious red fruit that comes in punnets and which, as the British rediscover every May or June, goes so very nicely with a dollop of fresh cream. For decades, local fruit farmers around Doñana – a region that produces 90 per cent of Spain's strawberries and 30 per cent of the EU's total – have used wells, legal or otherwise, on the perimeter of the vast wetland on Spain's south-western coast. But, according to the WWF, farmers themselves estimate that the boom in the past 30 years in strawberry and rice farming has seen the number of illegal wells reach 2,000. These have brought drainage levels of aquifers in the 1,300sq km park desperately close to catastrophe. That some of these now illegal wells were created with public money in the 1970s and '80s, when the local government turned a blind eye to agricultural exploitation in the region, merely adds to the confusion. "The extraction of water in the area is largely illegal and out of control," Miguel Ferrer, a research professor at Doñana and a representative for Andalusia on CSIC, Spain's biggest research council, says. "The drop in aquifer water levels, by several metres in places, can be noted 30 kilometres to the south of where the water is extracted." Compared with more than a century ago, the Doñana area has lost roughly 80 per cent of its fresh water supply, Ms Hernandez says, although 60 per cent of the original wetlands have also disappeared over those years. Far more worrying is that the heavily cultivated valley of La Rocina, the principal source of water for Doñana, has lost 50 per cent of its flow in the past 30 years. In the same area, there are now 50 illegal wells and seven dams. Ms Hernandez adds: "We can see changes in the composition of the vegetation which indicate that not enough water is reaching the ecosystems. All it would take to resolve this situation is for everybody to work together but, unfortunately, for the last 15 to 20 years – if not more – there's been no such balanced approach." Because Doñana is so flat, Mr Ferrer says, its natural vegetation is heavily dependent on narrow bands of earth remaining moist, and any change in water level has exceptionally harsh effects. Particularly affected are "birds that need water for reproduction in the late spring months", such as the marbled teal duck, already under threat of extinction in Spain. Their numbers at Doñana, he says, are dropping. The WWF first sent out an alert about Doñana's falling water levels in the mid-1990s; it sent out another in a report this spring. Last July, Unesco, too, warned about the excessive drainage of Doñana's water resources by strawberry farmers. But, although some farmers have been heavily fined for water misuse in recent years, the last on-the-ground attempt to close an illegal Doñana well was in 2007. It failed. And a government plan for agriculture in the region has been gathering dust in a filing cabinet somewhere for nearly a year. Until the 1980s, the fruit plantations were small, family-run affairs, Ms Hernandez says. But at that point "it all went a bit crazy, the farms expanded enormously, and areas of forest were cut down for planting. The only limits on the plantations were the ones the farmers decided on themselves. Some wells were legal, some were illegal, but nobody knew what was going on because there wasn't any control. But we saw that, after an exceptionally rainy 2010, the level of the aquifer was worse than after the drought of 1994." Ms Hernandez is at pains to point out that there are plenty of farms using legal water. As Innocent Drinks, a British smoothie-making company, has proved, it is possible to get cast-iron guarantees that at least some Doñana-area strawberries are produced without damaging the environment. Innocent's head of sustainability, Jessica Sansom, says: "We work with our Spanish supplier to check the farms' water sources are legal, and we've cut out those that aren't." But longer-term solutions are also being explored. Innocent has been funding a team of scientists from Cordoba University to see how "fertigation" – the term for the joint process of irrigation and deployment of fertilisers, which are carried through irrigation channels to each plant – can be carried out more efficiently. The lessons about water management can be applied elsewhere, Mr Ferrer points out: "Given the importance of the park, and the issues about water this raises, any problem in Doñana is really a problem for the whole world." Wildlife at risk El Parque Nacional de Doñana is a highly important area of marsh, scrubland, dunes and beaches on Spain's south-west Atlantic coast. Just under the size of Greater London, it is home to hundreds of species, some severely endangered. Among the 28 mammals are the horseshoe bat, polecat, weasel, small-spotted genet, Andalusian horse, mufflon, monk seal, wild boar, badger, rabbit, Spanish red deer, Egyptian mongoose and Iberian lynx. The wetlands have 17 species of reptile – including snakes, the spiny-footed lizard, spur-thighed tortoise, Lataste's viper and salamander – and nine amphibians, as well as dolphins and at least 20 types of fish. There are more than 200 Mediterranean and African bird species, migratory and resident, including one of the world's largest colonies of Spanish imperial eagle, with 15 breeding pairs. Other birds include booted and short-toed eagles, black vulture, buzzard, hobby and black, red and black-shouldered kites, purple gallinule, nightjar, pink flamingo, greylag goose, white-headed duck, marbled teal, white-eyed pochard, wigeon, stone curlew and the stork. Doñana was listed as a Unesco world heritage site in 1994.

Bank bail-out won't end Spain's property nightmare

The Spanish predicament is, as was the case in the US with the subprime mortgage collapse that fuelled the 2008/9 financial crisis, property-led. Recent data from the Knight Frank Global House Price index shows that Spanish residential properties fell by 7.3pc in the year to the end of March. Official Spanish data state that prices are down 20pc from the peak, but those figures are based on bank valuations, rather than actual sales. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the fall from the top of the market is closer to 30pc, but how much further can prices go? In spite of the small but growing number of articles in the British media that ask whether now is the time to buy Spanish property, it is likely, if the case of Ireland is anything to go by, that values will fall by as much as 50pc from the peak before they begin to bottom out. As a result, an increasing number of critics believe that the capital injection being discussed by European leaders for Spain’s banks is merely a sticking plaster, rather than the deep and detailed stitches and wound care its financial system clearly needs. In a recent research note, economists at investment bank JP Morgan estimated that despite the €40bn (£32.4bn) or so that many in the market believe Spain’s banks need to be adequately recapitalised, the full requirement could be as much as €350bn once all is said and done. What is more worrying, as my colleague Philip Aldrick notes in his piece looking beyond the Spanish bail-out, is that one of the sources for the capital may be the IMF’s precautionary credit line, which was set up to help the so-called “innocent victims” of the euro crisis. Whether the IMF, or as seems more likely the European Financial Stability Fund, ends up providing the funds, that Spain as a nation is innocent is somewhat risible. Granted, unlike some of its southern European neighbours, its populous may pay their taxes, and its government may not have over-borrowed, but its current predicament is the result of an overheated property sector from which many have benefited. There are clearly many victims emanating from the eurozone crisis, but Spain, in spite of its size and international standing, is far from one of them. Let’s hope the international authorities, be it the European Union or the International Monetary Fund, do not go easy on the country, for to do so, could mean that the size of the eventual cheque is far larger than the relatively small amounts currently being discussed.

Spain's Bankia investors to start compensation claim

A group of small shareholders in Spain's bailed-out Bankia will add to a growing flurry of legal claims against the bank with a civil claim next week, as they seek compensation for investments that have been all but wiped out. Bankia, at the heart of a banking crisis that looks set to push Spain to ask for a bailout, has asked for a 19 billion euro (15.5 billion pounds) state rescue.

Spain became the fourth and largest country to ask Europe to rescue its failing banks, a bailout of up to €100 billion ($125 billion)

Spain became the fourth and largest country to ask Europe to rescue its failing banks, a bailout of up to €100 billion ($125 billion) that leaders hoped would stabilize a financial crisis that threatens to break apart the 17-country eurozone. The rescue offer follows growing pressure from international investors and the Obama administration and comes a week before elections in Greece, whose voters could decide whether the country leaves the euro. Europe's widening recession and financial crisis has hurt companies and investors around the world. Providing a financial lifeline to Spanish banks is likely to relieve anxiety on the Spanish economy — which is five times larger than Greece's — and on markets concerned about the country's ability to pay its way. "What the markets are looking for is essentially the Spanish government's acceptance that its banks are broke," said Jacob Kirkegaard, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, Saturday. Economy Minister Luis de Guindos announced the deal after an emergency conference call with eurozone financial leaders. He said the aid will go to the banking sector only and would not come with new austerity conditions attached for the economy in general — conditions that have been an integral part of previous bailouts to Portugal, Ireland and Greece. The exact figure of the bailout has not yet been decided. De Guindos said the country is waiting until independent audits of the country's banking sector have been carried out before asking for a specific amount. The audits are expected June 21 at the latest. De Guindos did say, however, that Spain would request enough money for recapitalization, plus a safety margin that will be "significant." With markets in turmoil, de Guindos said the government's efforts to shore up the financial sector "must be completed with the necessary resources to finance the needs of recapitalization." Finance ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro said the money would be fed directly into a fund Spain set up to recapitalize its banks, but underscored that the Spanish government is ultimately responsible for the loan. Still, that plan allows Spain to avoid making the onerous commitments that Greece, Ireland and Portugal were forced to when they sought their rescues. Instead, the eurogroup statement said that it expected Spain's banking sector to implement reforms and that Spain would be held to its previous commitments to reform its labor market and manage its deficit. The eurogroup statement said that meant the cost could reach €100 billion. The Spanish acceptance of aid for its banks is a big embarrassment for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who insisted just 10 days ago that the banking sector would not need a bailout. He was elected in November and walked right into a hurricane. International pressure on Spain to solve its financial problems has grown more urgent in recent weeks. On Thursday ratings agency Fitch hit Spain with a three-notch downgrade of its credit rating. That left it two levels above junk status. Then on Friday, Moody's Investor Services warned it could downgrade Spain and other countries in the eurozone. The International Monetary Fund early Saturday released a report estimating that Spanish banks need a recapitalization injection of at least €40 billion ($50 billion) following a stress test it performed on the country's financial sector. That report came out three days ahead of schedule, underscoring the urgency of the situation. And U.S. President Barack Obama, facing re-election, enduring a weak economy and in need of strong trading partners, expressed strong concern late Friday over the European economic crisis. U.S Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner welcomed Spain's decision and the offer of European support, describing them as "important for the health of Spain's economy and as concrete steps on the path to financial union, which is vital to the resilience of the euro area." French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the deal would "contribute to restoring confidence in the eurozone." "The accord announced tonight speaks to a reinforced solidary among the countries of the eurozone and to their resolute desire to ensure its stability," he said in a statement. Spain's financial problems are not due to Greek-style government over-spending. The country's banks got caught up in the collapse of a real estate bubble. However, as Spain's leaders have struggled for a solution to their banking crisis, the country's borrowing costs have soared close to the level that forced the governments of Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek rescues. Some of Spain's banks are struggling with by toxic real estate loans and assets. The Bank of Spain says they total around €180 billion. Nationalized lender Bankia, SA, which has requested €19 billion in aid, has €32 billion in toxic assets. Around four other banks are considered prime candidates for bailouts. De Guindos said Saturday the sector is largely solid and the euro zone package will be funnel toward only about 30 percent of it. Analyst Rafael Pampillon if IE Business School in Madrid said the bailout addressed the uncertainty the markets had felt about how Spain's debt-laden banking sector would recapitalize. "This uncertainty, and hence the panic, will slowly dissipate from the markets," he said. Pampillon added that with polls forecasting a pro-Euro victory in Greek elections, markets would be further relieved because the austerity conditions imposed on Greece would most likely be fulfilled. Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University trade policy professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the decision "buys some temporary breathing room for the eurozone." Moody's said Spain's banking problem is largely confined to that country and not likely to spill over to other eurozone nations, with the exception of Italy — where the European Central Bank has already stepped in to buy government bonds as a way to help lower the country's borrowing costs. Spain has been criticized for being too slow to set out a roadmap to resolve its problem. European business leaders and analysts have stressed that Spain must find a solution quickly so that it is not caught up in any market turmoil sparked by the June 17 Greek elections. There are concerns that anti-bailout left-wing party Syriza could become the largest party in the Greek parliament, putting the country's membership in the eurozone at risk. Working in Spain's favor is the fact that its public debt is actually quite low, at 68.5 percent of its gross domestic product at the end of 2011. Its debt is predicted to hit 78 percent by the end of the year, but even that figure would be below the debt-to-GDP ratios of Europe's strongest economy, Germany, which is at 82 percent. But Spain's in its second recession in three years, with unemployment at nearly 25 percent and little hope for improvement this year. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government has imposed a wave of austerity measures since he took office in December that have raised taxes, made it cheaper to hire and fire workers and cut government funding for education and health care.

Bank of England meets amid talk of £50bn stimulus

Bank of England policymakers meet today to decide whether to change interest rates or to pump in more money into the ailing economy, with leading economist saying they may opt to inject a further £50bn of stimulus.

Europe is on the verge of financial chaos.

Global capital markets, now the most powerful force on earth, are rapidly losing confidence in the financial coherence of the 17-nation euro zone. A market implosion there, like that triggered by Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008, may not be far off. Not only would that dismantle the euro zone, but it could also usher in another global economic slump: in effect, a second leg of the Great Recession, analogous to that of 1937. This risk is evident in the structure of global interest rates. At one level, U.S. Treasury bonds are now carrying the lowest yields in history, as gigantic sums of money seek a safe haven from this crisis. At another level, the weaker euro-zone countries, such as Spain and Italy, are paying stratospheric rates because investors are increasingly questioning their solvency. And there’s Greece, whose even higher rates signify its bankrupt condition. In addition, larger businesses and wealthy individuals are moving all of their cash and securities out of banks in these weakening countries. This undermines their financial systems. 423 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post The reason markets are battering the euro zone is that its hesitant leaders have not developed the tools for countering such pressures. The U.S. response to the 2008 credit market collapse is instructive. The Federal Reserve and Treasury took a series of huge and swift steps to avert a systemic meltdown. The Fed provided an astonishing $13 trillion of support for the credit system, including special facilities for money market funds, consumer finance, commercial paper and other sectors. Treasury implemented the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, which infused equity into countless banks to stabilize them. The euro-zone leaders have discussed implementing comparable rescue capabilities. But, as yet, they have not fully designed or structured them. Why they haven’t done this is mystifying. They’d better go on with it right now. Europe has entered this danger zone because monetary union — covering 17 very different nations with a single currency — works only if fiscal union, banking union and economic policy union accompany it. Otherwise, differences among the member-states in competitiveness, budget deficits, national debt and banking soundness can cause severe financial imbalances. This was widely discussed when the monetary treaty was forged in 1992, but such further integration has not occurred. How can Europe pull back from this brink? It needs to immediately install a series of emergency financial tools to prevent an implosion; and put forward a detailed, public plan to achieve full integration within six to 12 months. The required crisis tools are three: ●First, a larger and instantly available sovereign rescue fund that could temporarily finance Spain, Italy or others if those nations lose access to financing markets. Right now, the proposed European Stability Mechanism is too small and not ready for deployment. ●Second, a central mechanism to insure all deposits in euro-zone banks. National governments should provide such insurance to their own depositors first. But backup insurance is necessary to prevent a disastrous bank run, which is a serious risk today. ●Third, a unit like TARP, capable of injecting equity into shaky banks and forcing them to recapitalize. These are the equivalent of bridge financing to buy time for reform. Permanent stability will come only from full union across the board. And markets will support the simple currency structure only if they see a true plan for promptly achieving this. The 17 member-states must jointly put one forward. Both the rescue tools and the full integration plan require Germany, Europe’s strongest country, to put its balance sheet squarely behind the euro zone. That is an unpopular idea in Germany today, which is why Chancellor Angela Merkel has been dragging her feet. But Germany will suffer a severe economic blow if this single-currency experiment fails. A restored German mark would soar in value, like the Swiss franc, and damage German exports and employment. The time for Germany and all euro-zone members to get the emergency measures in place and commit to full integration is now. Global capital markets may not give them another month. The world needs these leaders to step up.

Spain is warning that Europe's single currency will unravel

Spain is warning that Europe's single currency will unravel unless its leaders decide within weeks to centralise budget and tax policies in the eurozone and agree on a strategy to pool responsibility for failing banks. As Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, came under mounting international pressure to accept the eurozone's fourth national bailout in two years, the government in Madrid angrily rejected the demands, insisting that it did not need rescuing. With fears of a euro meltdown having rapidly shifted from Greece to Spain, Rajoy is pleading for a direct eurozone rescue of his country's banks, to avoid the humiliation attached to requesting a national bailout. Sources close to the Spanish government said its negotiating position was that the fundamental quandary facing the eurozone was not Spain, but a European failure of leadership in persuading the financial markets that the euro would be defended at all costs. A crucial Brussels summit at the end of the month would have to remedy that by agreeing to establish a eurozone banking and fiscal union, major federalising steps certain to be fought over intensely. Without that commitment, Spanish sources said starkly, the euro would be finished within months. The Spanish government believes that the eurozone's fourth-biggest economy is too big to rescue and that the consequences of abandoning Spain to the markets without a pledge of major European reform could be so ferocious that the single currency would not survive.