Esquire - November 2016 Uk.pdf

November 2016

Contents

Standing his ground: Tony Blair photographed for Esquire by Simon Emmett. He talks exclusively to Alex Bilmes on page 152

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November 2016

Contents REGULARS AA GILL P37 Esquire’s agony uncle considers the amateur English superman, flaws and all

WILL SELF P41 The writer bemoans his less-than-perfect skin

STYLE P45 Michael B Jordan’s fashion creed; preventive grooming; Jeremy Langmead; this year’s best apps; Lamborghini goes bespoke; Russell Norman; Bottega Veneta AW ’16; wines for romance; Dubai guide; Kenzo x H&M; Hackett and Aston Martin team up

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Sam Hofman | David Urbanke | Robbie Porter | Hearst Studios

CULTURE P99 Believe in the Westworld; Julia Jacklin’s Aussie alt-country; the Nazis’ hard drug culture; Charlie Brooker; War on Everyone and American Honey; art drones; Mike Massimino’s memoirs; Oasis at Knebworth; Louis Theroux

OBJECT OF DESIRE P202 The classic two-piece navy suit by Giorgio Armani 90

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45

CONTRIBUTORS Simon Emmett

Anton Corbijn

AA Gill

“It’s not every day you photograph an ex-prime minister,” says the contributing photographer who shot Tony Blair in London and Israel for this issue. “I’m half-Israeli, so it was a privilege to be there with him. I’ve lived there when the bombs are going off and planes are overhead. To get an insight into how the politics works was amazing; it’s not something most people get to see.” The full report is on page 152.

Film-maker and photographer Corbijn is no stranger to working with nascent superstars, having collaborated with U2 since well before the Dublin band were playing stadiums the size of Bono’s bluster. This month for Esquire, the Dutch creative captures, on page 182, another man in the ascendant, young British actor Joe Alwyne, soon to be seen as the lead in Ang Lee’s new film, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Our caustic agony uncle talks idol-worship this month. “I had few role models as a child,” he says. “But I did like Wendy [from Peter Pan]. She’s the only proper and decent person in the play. Peter’s a fuckwit. Everyone else is idiotic. But Wendy is good — she’s thoughtful and kind, even to Tinkerbell, who’s horrible to her.” A star writer for Vanity Fair and The Sunday Times, Gill’s memoir, Pour Me, is out now.

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November 2016

Contents FEATURES 25 AT 25 P130 With this issue, Esquire UK marks a quarter of a century on the newsstands. To celebrate this landmark, we select the 25 men who have most influenced the lives of British men since 1991

TONY BLAIR P152 The former British prime minister gives a world exclusive interview to Editor-in-Chief Alex Bilmes

FASHION

Anton Corbijn | Getty

182

BRIGHT FUTURE P182 Introducing a man to watch for the next quarter century, Brit actor Joe Alwyn, star of Ang Lee’s upcoming Iraq War epic 180

CONTRIBUTORS Will Self

Russell Norman

Jeremy Langmead

“Everyone knows ‘Will Self’ is the creation of two unsuccessful artists from Herefordshire,” the editor-at-large tells us. “David and Letitia Philbert dreamed up ‘Self’ in the Nineties when their own careers were failing: ‘We conceived Self over a few pints. Our finest creation, he’s witty, urbane and dresses with sophistication. True, the only part of him that’s a painting is his face, but the oily impasto is most impressive...’’’

This month, our resident cook introduces unusual flavour combinations. “The most surprising dish I had was at a farm in Greece,’’ he recalls. “I was staying with a lovely family and their pet goat, Revithi. At summer’s end, we enjoyed a huge stew. Delicious. When I asked what was in it, my host pointed to the empty back yard. ‘Revithi,’ he said.’’ Norman is working on his next book, My Venetian Kitchen.

“Knitwear used to be something only worn by grannies or people who played golf,” says the contributing editor. “And it was only ever referred to as ‘jumpers’ or ‘sweaters’. I’m not sure when knitwear came into use. Nor why it was ever called ‘jumpers’, come to think of it.” Langmead is brand and content director at Mr Porter, and editor-in-chief of The Times’ quarterly Luxx magazine.

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November 2016

EDITOR’S LETTER

“But you told us to approach him

“That’s OK.”

for a What I’ve Learned. We can’t

“OK. Good. So: Clarkson. Absolutely

cancel it now. It’s way too late.”

nailed on. Yes. He has to be there.”

“God, this is such a nightmare.”

“Clarkson, that’s one.”

“Why don’t you just drop Chris Morris?

“Damien Hirst… Damien

No one remembers him anyway.”

Hirst… Damien Hirst?”

“No one remembers Chris Morris? Without

“Will’s already filed his piece

Chris Morris there wouldn’t be any Ali

on Damien Hirst.”

bloody G. Or Steve Coogan. Or any of

“OK, Damien Hirst is in. That’s two.”

them. I’m not dropping him, that’s final.

“Cool.”

Take out Russell boring Brand instead.”

“Noel and Damon. Yep.”

“But we’ve got that amazing photo

“That’s four.”

of him dressed as Bin Laden.” “I don’t care. Take him out. He was rubbish, anyway.” “Alex, can I just say something? And don’t get angry. This list is way too

“How do you work that out?” “What?” “That’s not four. It’s three. They count as one entry, we’re doing them together.” “Noel and Damon count as one entry?”

“Take out Gordon Ramsay

Nineties. It’s like, ‘Who was most famous

and put in Gary Barlow.”

in 1997? Make a list. Publish it.’”

“But you said you didn’t want him in!”

“Yeah? Because it would be so much

“No, I didn’t. That was Ricky Gervais.”

better if it was, like, Harry Styles and

“William and Harry count as one entry?”

“Shall we swap him for Chris Morris, then?”

the dipshits off Peep Show or whatever

“Yes, they do!”

you lot watch, wouldn’t it?”

“So Clarkson, Damien, Noel and

“Er, I think Peep Show ended about

Damon makes… three?”

three years ago? And what I’m

“Yes, exactly. Just write this down, OK.

saying is it wouldn’t hurt to have

Chris Morris, yes. The Day Today.

a few people under 40 on there.”

Fucking epic.”

“Harry Potter! He’s under 40.”

“Alex, I hate to tell you this, but that

“What about James Corden? He’s young.”

means you’ve got Chris Morris, Ricky

“I seriously can’t take this. If anyone

Gervais, Steve Coogan, Sacha Baron

suggests another comedian I’m

Cohen, the Little Britain guys…”

scrapping the whole thing. Who the

“No, I haven’t, because I’m starting from

hell cares if it’s our birthday, anyway?

the bloody beginning again, aren’t I?”

Even I don’t care, and I work here!”

“OK, I’m just warning you…”

“I think it’s a bit late now to

“Right, that’s it. Forget everything

junk the whole thing.”

I said. I can’t spend all day on this

“I’m telling you now, this is the last time

shit. I’ve got a lunch in a minute.”

I’m discussing this. Let’s go through it

“Take out Gary Barlow then?”

again, for the final time, and then that’s it.”

“Take out Gary Barlow with a sub-

“OK, what list are you going off?”

machine gun, for all I care.”

I don’t know. I can’t go through this

“My bloody list. The list I made!”

“And Gordon Ramsay?”

again. This is not a job for a grown

“OK. I’ll write these down and this will

“Yeah, him, too. Dispose of the lot of them.

man. Put back Simon Cowell.”

be the definitive list and then we won’t

Terminate with extreme prejudice.”

bother you about it ever again. Promise.”

“Right, OK. But if you are counting

“Right, good. OK. Sorry for

William and Harry as one, we’re

shouting but, I mean…”

still about three or four short.”

“Hang on, where’s Boris gone?” “You definitely dropped Boris. You said just to do a silly thing about his hair.” “No, no, no. This is definitely not my final list. There was no Freddie Flintoff on that.” “There was! On the list you emailed us last night? Honestly. It was Andy Murray you got rid of, not Flintoff.” “Andy Murray? No, I didn’t. Fuck’s sake. This is doing my head in. What about Simon Cowell? What’s happened to him?” “I’ll get a print-out of that list you emailed us if you don’t believe me.” “Jesus. Well, I’ve changed my mind, haven’t I? I’m allowed to change my mind. Take out Gordon Ramsay and put in Gary Barlow.” “Really? Gary Barlow?” “Oh, all right then, maybe not.

“Simon… Cowell… back… in! But you’ll have to drop someone else.” “I just did! Gordon Ramsay!”

“Don’t argue with me about it! It’s the same thing as William and Harry.”

“Well, just put back some of the

“No, Gordon Ramsay and someone else.

ones you made me take out.”

Because you put Gary Barlow back in. That’s 26, even without Gordon Ramsay.”

“Like who?”

“Shouldn’t it be Heston

“I don’t bloody know. Jarvis

Blumenthal anyway, if we’re

Cocker? Jamie Oliver?”

doing cooks? Oh, whatever.”

“Another chef?”

“Good news is the Sacha Baron Cohen

“Not Jamie Oliver, then. Jarvis Cocker

interview’s happening today in LA.”

and Jarvis Cocker’s maths teacher.”

“Sacha Baron Cohen? We can’t have

“Fine. OK. I can see this is going nowhere.

him! That’s too many comedians.

How’s the Blair piece going, by the way?”

We’ll have to drop Steve Coogan!”

“Oh, bugger off, will you?”

30

Agony

AA Gill is Esquire’s

UNCLE DYSFUNCTIONAL This month, our admiral of advocacy imparts some cold, hard facts to an over-adventurous soul

Joe McKendry

Dysfunctional, I make no apologies, I find the familial, honorific “uncle” embarrassing and, frankly, over-foreign. I don’t think we are related and I can’t imagine that you’re from a naval family. I’m writing a number of these final letters at the moment, trying to map a course through posterity that I’ve been unable to find in life, and I thought it might be sensible to drop you a little instructive missive. Let me introduce myself: I am Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN, deceased (well, shortly will be). In all future correspondence I wish to be referred to as Scott the Intrepid, Scott the Moral Discoverer of the Pole, The Great Scott, or Scott of the Antarctic. I’m lying in a very small tent and I can’t feel my feet, which is probably a good thing as they’ve turned a disgusting colour. The other two are already dead and I’ve buttoned them up in their bags. Oates, of course, typically, went off to die al fresco, leaving me with his last words: “I am just going outside and I may be some time.” Which is a bit of a mimsy final utterance, only to be expected from a cavalry officer. I pass it on without comment. I did suggest something heroic like, “I’m going to find help” or, “I’m going to face death standing up, at attention with my fists up,” but he wasn’t having it. I understand that you write in a periodical for young men, and I’m sure you’re on the constant lookout for role models and heroes to hold up to impressionable chaps as stars by which they might guide their youthful, energetic lives. I can think of no finer example than myself. As I lie here virtually dead, I look back at my life and can think of nothing more moving and inspiring than a committed amateur armed with no more than a pinch of pluck and some English derring-do, setting out to walk to an arbitrary point at the far end of the Earth, leading a group of jolly fine chaps who look up to me with undimmed adoration and trust to take them to glory,

which I would modestly suggest I have. We are the proudest of all English types: public school dabblers who struggle against infeasible odds and then fail, proving that any Hans, Abdul or Ting-Ting can win but it takes a certain brand of Englishman to come second with good grace, aplomb and a shrug. In our case, we’re so chilled, we’ve given ourselves frostbite. You can use that if you like. So, I suggest you get on and offer me and my team up as bloody marvellous examples of English pluck, nerve and committed amateurism. I would suggest a cover picture of me looking resolutely into the future. And why don’t you instigate a Scott Memorial Award for young thrusters who go and do really exciting things but don’t quite win in the end? OK, I can tell death has got up to my chin so I must sign off. I think my last words will be, “Better luck next time.” Scott the Moral Discoverer of the Pole PS: Could you start a petition to get the Antarctic renamed Scottland or perhaps Greater Scottland. Or how about Scottland the Brave?

I’m sure you’re on constant lookout for heroes to hold up to impressionable chaps. I can think of no finer example than myself, Captain Robert Falcon Scott

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Agony

Dear Robert Falcon, I’ve always thought that the Falcon name was touchingly prophetic as your son will grow up to be an ornithologist, conservationist and painter of birds. Well, it’s taken some time for your letter to get here but you’re still buried in the slowly shifting ice of Antarctica. They say you’re probably encased 75ft down, moving slowly towards the sea. In a century or so, you will calf into an iceberg, which would be a Wagnerianly suitable sendoff. I like to think of you as a sort of amateur English superman, cryogenised, waiting for the empire’s call to return and cock it up all over again. In saying that, I must also admit that you epitomise the sort of Englishman I would hate my sons to grow up to be: an insecure, chippy, quick to take offence, slow to take advice chap; always ready to blame and to take credit. Actually, your last words were a scrawled, “For God’s sake look after our people,” the handwriting falling off the page. It was a constant concern of yours. You write it earlier, in a letter to the nation. Your father, a brewer, lost all his money and you’d been supporting your mother and sister on a junior officer’s salary; probity and cash were your abiding concerns. It would be unkind to say you killed all your party, including poor Oates, but you certainly didn’t help. You were reckless, pig-headed and expected others to come and dig you out of the snow. I’m not going to commend you to today’s young, mostly because they would laugh at me. And they’re quite capable of finding their own role models. Though I am reluctantly going to wave the Richard Curtis magic wand over your story so that we can apply the Great British Creator of Happy Endings to your tragic one. Curtis is after your time but, trust me, you’re in good hands. And this is just short and sweet:

You are the type of Englishman I would hate my sons to be: insecure, chippy, quick to take offence, slow to take advice; always ready to blame and to take credit Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition of 1907–’09, after finding the Magnetic South Pole and climbing Mount Erebus, goes on to get to the actual Pole. He returns home even more of a hero, is knighted and fêted. And you can go back to being a naval officer, already famous as an explorer, but you never have to go on the fatal expedition. Neither does Amundsen, who even all Norwegians admit was possibly the most unpleasant man ever to explore. And Shackleton makes a much better hero than you do. He really did look after his men, brought them all back safely. And he had a centre parting: anyone who can carry off a short haircut centre parting is a hero. Getting to the Pole is naught after that. What is more interesting, though, is your wife and young son, the people you wanted the nation to look after. She was really amazing. You were only married for a few years, but she was friends with JM Barrie, Bernard Shaw, the Bloomsbury Group, she went to the Slade and was a  very good sculptor, studied under Rodin — and we must assume did a lot of wriggling under Rodin as well — most lady artists did. She was all the things that you weren’t. Apparently she shagged Nansen, another Norwegian explorer, while you were making snowmen. The statue of you in London is by her. It must have been odd making a larger-than-life model of your dead husband who spent your short marriage consumed with getting away from you to go and do ridiculous bits of Boy’s Own showing off, leaving you with an infant who’d never know his father. The real hero of the Antarctic was Kathleen Scott. Go to see the Scott statue in Westminster and think of her.

Email questions for AA Gill to [email protected]

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For more AA Gill, go to esquire.co.uk

Will Self

SELF EXAMINATION

Joe McKendry

Each month, Will Self evaluates a significant part of the male anatomy. Here, he touches upon the skin we live in, warts and all to reach this moment of repletion, there’s always a niggling doubt: is this skin — my skin, her skin/his skin, our skin — is it… well, is it perfect? Did I not notice a blemish that might — just might — have been a whitehead, or even a nascent plooker, when I did that to her/him, there, with this...? (Our reverie, unbidden, progresses…) While as for me, I know perfectly well perfection eludes me — there are those scars down there, and those odd warty-things up there, not forgetting the patch of dry and flaking dermis the size of Nebraska which has been festering between those for some time now… To almost all of the above I can willingly assent: my skin is not, has not, and indeed never could’ve been perfect, any more than anyone else’s. I say “almost”, because desiccation is not my problem — really. When a salesperson thrusts a new moisturiser in my face I say, “I do not know you, for my skin is of the oily kind — the very oily kind.” I can only imagine I get this oily — and, once the sun gets to it, olive — covering from the Jewish side of the family. My father’s people went a regulation Anglo-puce in

“Perfect Skin” is a 1984 hit by Scots beat combo Lloyd Cole and The Commotions: a fairly conventional indie-bluesyditty charting the sexual adventures of a young North Briton. Cole prettily whines, “She’s got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin / And she’s sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan”; not that he’ll benefit, because, “My eyes go out in vain / For her perfect skin”. Yet who among us cannot admit that our eyes have gone out in vain for this or that or 1,000 other perfect skins? Yes, while some objectifying soulless bastards may proudly proclaim themselves to be “leg-men” or “breast-men” or even — heavens to Betsy! — “arse-men”, it can be asserted without fear or favour that we are all, every last man-jack of us, skin-men. All lovemaking is skin stroking and as any fool knows, to make leisurely love, preferably in the afternoon, and then lie skin-to-skin with someone you really wouldn’t mind queuing alongside for a rail-replacement bus service on a rainy winter’s night in Luton, is the summit of an ordinary mortal’s existence. This being noted, how odd it is that when we do finally manage

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Will Self

the sun, burned then peeled, but my mother was frankly beige, while my uncle Bob had the teak, graven and well-lubricated look of a cigar store Indian. On the plus side, there’s no expenditure on dumb unguents, including sunscreen, but the downside is vertiginous: dear reader, I turned 55 this year, and in economically more certain times, had I personally been a great deal more providential, I might’ve been able to retire; I would then have been a pensioner who — gulp! — regularly squeezes whiteheads and blackheads out of his oily old face. I’d also have become a pensioner who still, from time-to-time, experiences one of these little excrescences growing overnight with mushroom alacrity, until — goaded upright at dawn by my bladder — I witness this hideous anachronism in the mirror: a plooker of exactly the same kind that marred the clear complexion of my otherwise perfect puberty. Yes, I’ve had the temerity to say it out loud: you still get acne when you’re old! Every year I expected the effects of ageing to edge-out these juvenile blemishes, but no; instead, by sagging and pleating, my skin has simply increased the area available to be spotty. I blame my old man, for surely this is something a father should do for a son, just as he should take you out to hunt your first wild animal after savagely biting off your prepuce. He should’ve taken me aside and warned me: “Heed not the siren song of Lloyd Cole, my son, not only is there no such thing as perfect skin, but you yourself, once two-score years have elapsed, will still be contributing healthily either to the profits of Reckitt Benckiser, the current owner of the Clearasil brand, or its successors. Yes, my dear, dear foolish son, dream not of a smoothly shaven cheek sliding sensually along an inner thigh of dew-fresh purity and succulence, but of a raddled and lumpy jowl being vigorously abraded by stubbly leg!” It could be my genes — or very possibly it’s a curse. My poor brother had dreadful acne as an adolescent and had to paint his mush up with vile-smelling potassium permanganate every night before bed. At breakfast I’d sit opposite him, absorbing the medicinal stench and endeavouring not to look into the atrocity exhibition of his face. “Oh, my God!” I’d occasionally cry — heaping on the torture — “It looks like the Grand Canyon at sunset!” Yet now, while his doggy visage is no longer spotted, my own muzzle remains a pustulant puzzle, one which he scrutinises carefully on the rare occasions we meet, a sinister smile playing around his well-moisturised and smooth lips. There is beautiful matte-black skin — so black it seems to absorb the sunlight — and there’s drinkably delicious café-aulait skin, topped off with a froth of décolletage. I have known

pale skins — so pale they’re translucent, such that one peers through them into a sensual sea full of writhing veins and threshing arteries. The skin is the biggest of our organs: a living, breathing, whole-body shrink-wrap that’s loosened a little bit more whenever the music of time stops. I’ve been in hallucinogenic states of such ugly intensity I’ve experienced my entire skin as an itch, which, if scratched would peel away altogether… Because we sense this, don’t we, even as we stroke and palp and pinch our beloved, and she (or he) strokes and palps and pinches us: we apprehend the awful truth that our skin is all that stands between us and complete dissolution. With it we may well be imperfect — but without it, we’re just a puddle on the floor.

I’ve been in hallucinogenic states of such ugly intensity I’ve experienced my entire skin as an itch, which, if scratched would peel away altogether

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Style / List

THE LIST

Michael B Jordan The Creed star fights his corner for classic hightops, Californian wine and a vintage ’Stang Ï It’s been a steady rise for Michael Bakari Jordan since coming to prominence in the role of 16-year-old street hustler Wallace in The Wire back in 2002. One critically adored TV drama clearly wasn’t enough, however, as he went on to appear in Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, before moving into cinema with starring roles in Fruitvale Station (2013) and The Fantastic Four (2015). Last year, he cemented his place in the Hollywood firmament with the lead role of Adonis Johnson in Rocky spinoff, Creed. So, he has acting talent in buckets and also, as you’ll discover on the following page, a discerning eye for style.

Grey cotton suit, £1,195, by DSquared2. Grey cotton shirt, £240, by Jil Sander. Brown calf leather shoes, £695, by Christian Louboutin Homme. Stainless steel Polo S watch, £8,650, by Piaget

Photographs by David Urbanke

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Style / List

Blue denim jacket, £60, by Zara. Blue flannel shirt, £365, by Fear of God. Black cotton sweatshirt, £195, by Coach. Bleached blue denim jeans, £140, by Neuw. Watch, as before

Tools Watch: Piaget Polo S. Pen: No 2 pencil [HB in UK]. Suitcase: Coach duffel bag. App: WhatsApp. Gadget: iPhone Smart Battery Case. Website: mangapanda.com.

Food and drink Wine: Anything from Long Meadow Ranch, St Helena, California. Spirit: Don Julio 1942 Añejo Tequila. Beer: Ginger beer. Soda: Ramune. Dish: This is the hardest question on this list... it’s my family’s secret recipe chilli and cornbread. Snack: Warm butter cake at Mastro’s in Los Angeles. Restaurant: Postmates on-demand delivery. Haha. Bar: Noble, New York. Club: Hyde Lounge in Los Angeles; Haus in New York.

Tech Phone: iPhone. Tablet: iPad. Laptop: MacBook Pro. Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III. Sound system: Stellé Audio. Car: 1967 Ford Mustang.

Style icon: A$AP Rocky, I think his style is dope. Fictional icon: Apollo Creed or Son Goku. Artist: Hebru Brantley. Musician: In no particular order, Kendrick [Lamar], J Cole, Drake. Film star: Tom Cruise. Writer: Ryan Coogler. Instagram account: My own, @michaelbjordan.

Travel

Home

Hometown: Newark, New Jersey. Destination: Everywhere. Hotel: Bulgari, London. Shop: American Rag.

Bed linen: High-ass thread count. Pet: Belgian Malinois. Or an octopus. Kitchen gadget: Vitamix blender.

Style Grooming Fragrance: Paco Rabanne 1 Million. Toothpaste: Crest 3D White. Moisturiser: Aveeno. Shower gel: Dove body wash. Face wash: Aveeno facial scrub. Hair product: Shea Moisture. Barber: Jove Edmond.

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Jeans: Neuw. Shoes: Christian Louboutin. Sneakers: Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG Bred. Suit: Givenchy or Louis Vuitton. Tuxedo: Ralph Lauren Purple Label. Sunglasses: Ray-Ban. Wallet: John Varvatos. Underwear: Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

Styling: Jeff Kim for The Wall Group | Grooming: Kumi Craig for The Wall Group | Getty | See Stockists page for details

People

Style / Grooming

01 / Products EXFOLIATOR: Exfoliating Pore Refiner: Perricone MD The Pore Refiner has natural ingredients such as green tea, turmeric, olive leaf and cress sprouts (yes, cress sprouts) that boost antioxidant production in the skin. £35/118ml

Brush up on your skincare How to stand the test of time

Words by Charlie Teasdale | Hearst Studios | Getty | See Stockists page for details

Ï “If I could get back my youth,” reflects Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “I’d do anything in the world except get up early, take exercise or be respectable.” Thankfully, there are other ways to resist the ravages of time. “Starting early with a good skincare regime is key to minimising some of the effects of ageing,” advises dermatologist Dr Alexis Granite. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” She also suggests nailing the basics first: broadspectrum SPF protection and daily skin hydration via an adequate moisturiser. But if you really want to ward off those wrinkles, your next step should be products that promote collagen (the protein that provides strength and structure to skin) and antioxidants (these combat the airborne free radicals that cause ageing of the skin). We’ve ticked off the top treatments, diet and lifestyle changes needed for you to stay forever young.

MOISTURISER: Kiehl’s Age Defender

MASK: Lab Series Detox Clay Mask

Super lightweight and easily absorbed, Kiehl’s Age Defender Moisturiser features adenosine, which builds collagen in the skin to keep fine lines and wrinkles at bay. £38/50ml

This bright royal blue mask detoxifies the skin, unclogs the pores and helps to clean away pollutants. All in all, it’s the perfect prep for a beat-thosewrinkles regime. £26/100ml

Illustrations by Robbie Porter

ANTI-POLLUTANT: Aesop Parsley Seed Anti-Oxidant Hydrating Cream A blend of parsley seed, white tea and rock rose creates a free radical-beating formula that acts as a barrier on the skin. It’s also packed with antioxidants. £53/60ml

SERUM: Fit SPF 50 Serum for men According to Fit Skincare, daily sunscreen use slows skin ageing by 24 per cent, which makes its new SPF50 Sun Protect Serum — a first for men — a crucial aspect of your grooming process. £35/100ml

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Style / Grooming

02 / Treatments

03 / Food Nutritionist Sarah Ann Macklin’s food for thought

Sweet potato

Green tea

Tomatoes

Walnuts

A superfood for the skin, sweet potatoes contain high levels of beta-carotene. As a precursor of vitamin A, beta-carotene helps the body combat harmful free radicals.

Packed with polyphenols and powerful catechins, green tea prevents free radicals from harming healthy skin cells.

With plenty of lycopene (a bright red carotene and carotenoid pigment), tomatoes can limit oxidative damage of the skin caused by sun exposure and air pollutants.

Scoring high in omega-3 fatty acids, this nut not only lessens skin inflammation, but also promotes collagen production within the skin.

Melon

Valmont Facial for Men at The Dorchester Spa

Like pomegranates, eating melon gives the skin a (gentle) natural protection against UV rays, and it even helps to reduce skin inflammation.

Super-moisturising and fatigue-fighting, the Valmont Facial at The Dorchester uses powerful products and massage techniques to bring the skin back to life. From £80, dorchestercollection.com

Radio Frequency Facial by Dr Frances Prenna Jones In one of the best non-invasive treatments available, a thermal radio frequency wand is moved over the face — heating skin cells, promoting collagen production and firming the skin to boot. £195, drfrancesprennajones.com

04 / Lifestyle

Age Rebel Face Treatment at ESPA Life, Corinthia Including a steam, deep brush cleanse, enzyme peel, facial masque and toning masque — this 90-minute treatment helps to reduce fine lines and instantly leaves the skin feeling refreshed and invigorated. £185, espalifeatcorinthia.com

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Cut the fags

Go to bed

Get out of the city

Apparently, research has shown that smokers look 1.4 years older than non-smokers. What is certain is that smoking deprives the skin of oxygen and impedes blood flow to the face.

Sleep deprivation is often linked with accelerated ageing: just one night of bad shut eye can hamper the skin’s elasticity. Aim for between seven and eight hours a night — news just in!

The air in urban areas is often full of free radical-loaded pollutants from traffic fumes. These radicals can break down the collagen in your skin.

Style / Fashion

THE STYLE COLUMN

Jeremy Langmead Are designers pulling the wool over our eyes with ragged, distressed knitwear?

Ï Do you like melange? You’re

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While a new Italian brand I’m fond of (called Isabel Benenato) has a sweater that looks as if it’s made from bits of three old knits made into one by someone a little short-sighted. I suspect I’ve not made the above sound too tempting, but check them out and you will see what I mean. A big, old, distressed knit, worn over some slimfit Frame denim jeans, or a pair of John Elliott sweatpants teamed with sneakers or boots, can be a joy to wear. It does take you back to a carefree youth of student bars and lager drunk from plastic beakers (Withnail and I meets The Breakfast Club); it is also reminiscent of the whole early Nineties grunge movement. It’s the ideal outfit to wear for a night in the pub, or to snuggle on the sofa and watch Strictly Come Dancing (quite a hot line-up for this series). And if you think some of the prices of the items I’ve mentioned above are steep, then head to the high street for good alternatives — especially at Zara, J Crew and Club Monaco. Although, as my mother always points out when shopping: why pay less when you can pay more? I’m never quite sure whether she’s joking.

Rockin’ the look: Kurt Cobain and his iconic grunge jumper, 1992

Natty knits for A/W ’16

Grey militarystitched wool, £830, by Lanvin

Off-white laddered wool, £695, by JW Anderson

Bottle green distressed wool, £430, by Raf Simons

Getty | See Stockists page for details

probably thinking yes; especially with strawberries and cream. But I’m not talking about a challenge on The Great British Bake Off. Melange, not meringue, is — and forgive me if you knew this already — an item of knitwear made from yarns that are dyed different colours, or different yarns in different colours. Melange, as well as marled knitwear, is very fashionable this autumn. In fact, knitwear altogether is having a huge renaissance. It’s not a surprise we’re switching to sweaters now that the weather has taken a turn (that’s what old people say for when it gets colder), but the styles of knitwear available to men today have become a lot more adventurous. You have the trend for the aforementioned melange knitwear, which fashion people will tell you adds texture to an outfit. Not many of us head to the shops looking for texture on a Saturday afternoon, but the melange jumpers around at the moment do make a sweater appear more interesting, an outfit less bland, and conjure up aspects of the rural look — tweeds, cords, gilets — that is very popular. I’ve already invested in a few and now happily look like a presenter on Countryfile (try those by Kingsman, Helbers or Solid Homme). The other big trend at the moment is the big, old, battered sweater reminiscent of the ones you wore in your slightly grubby, gothy youth; ones that stretched to your knees, hung past your hands and tended to have a few fag burns dotted around. You’d imagine Kristen Stewart wears them at the

weekend, but don’t let that put you off. Raf Simons has designed great bottle green ribbed sweaters with artfully frayed and uneven hems and insignia badges on the sleeves and chest. The idea is that the item looks as if you’ve owned it for ages — all part of the trend — and yet still reassuringly costs a fortune as it’s made from virgin wool. Of course, paying £430 for a sweater that looks as if it’s seen better days is a bonkers notion but a) we like the fashion world being a bit bonkers, and b) there is something comforting and attractive about this trend. Perhaps — and forgive me for being a tad philosophical here — in a world that’s in turmoil, the idea of escape, nesting and old staples becomes more attractive. I have a few items of knackered knitwear on my wish-list. Lanvin has a lovely grey waffle-knit sweater that looks as if someone carelessly scissored out the hole at the top to fit your head through; JW Anderson has an invitinglooking chunky, oversized camel alpaca and wool sweater with slit cuffs and frayed tears dotted around it (one calls this look distressed, apparently).

Style / Cars

ESQUIRE APPROVES This Huracán is finished in the colours of Japan in matte white with red stripes to emphasise the sport line. lamborghini.com

Make your marque Now your new Lamborghini can be completely personalised, inside and out > >

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Lamborghini have found that most personalisation requests focus on seats, cabin and driver’s controls

Flaunt your personality: three more bespoke deals

Bentley Coachbuilder Mulliner creates the personal desires of Bentley owners. Upgrades include one-off paints and wood, GT seats, fridges, scent atomisers, secret compartments and LEDs to illuminate entry and exit. The Queen’s state limousine is an Arnage rebuilt by Mulliner, which says it all. bentleymotors.com

Ferrari The firm’s Tailor-Made option offers three collections inspired by Ferrari’s highperformance DNA: Scuderia (referencing racing history), Classica (based on its iconic GTs) and Inedita (innovative). At the Maranello factory, a personal designer will steer you through the infinite trim, add-on and finish choices. auto.ferrari.com

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interior with different types of leather and trim. About 40 per cent of new customers choose a bespoke option of some kind, which is available for both the Huracán and Aventador, and that number is growing. The majority of these personalisations tend to focus around the seat, where the driver spends nearly all his or her time after all, the steering wheel, and exterior details such as wheel colour, which obviously create a big visual impact and that all-important “exclusive” touch. At the other end of this spectrum, one Australian

customer requested a black, white and red theme throughout with different coloured sections and motifs inside and out, while a customer from the Middle East wanted additional gold logos fixed to his car’s exterior. “We try to satisfy the individual’s request as long as they don’t upset the image of the brand, so we try to guide the customers,” says Gabba. Given the extra manual factory work required, these custom jobs can add as much as €100,000 (£86,000) to that final bill. The desire for uniqueness comes at a price.

Jaguar Land Rover Opened this summer just outside Coventry, JLR’s £20m Special Vehicle Operations centre is a conversion workshop built to “fulfill the wildest dreams of our drivers”, whether that’s hyper-tuning a Jag F-Type for blistering speed, or beefing up a Range Rover Sport for supreme off-road wallop. jaguar.co.uk; landrover.co.uk

Words by Will Hersey and Brendan Fitzgerald

Ï What’s better than owning a Lamborghini? Helping to actually design one to your own bespoke specification, of course. “Obviously we already make desirable cars but our customers want to make them even more unique,” explains Vittorio Gabba, head of Lamborghini’s newly expanded Ad Personam Studio. He works with its customers on everything from small tweaks such as logo stitching or a personalised signature on the interior to, at the other extreme, a brandnew colour combination or the complete reworking of the

Style / Tech

The 50 best apps of 2016... ...so far 1 / Stephen Hawking’s Pocket Universe A beautifully illustrated guide to topics including space-time, black holes and the expanding universe. £5.99

2 / OverDrive A global e-library. Borrow eBooks and audiobooks from 30,000 participating libraries worldwide. They’re “returned” automatically. Free

3/ Swapshots: — Post Your Prints Royal Mail leaps into the 20th century with its first consumer app, allowing you to snail mail hard copies of photos. Free

4 / NBA Live Mobile Mobile version of the basketball game that allows you to play 5-on-5 action, as well as connect with the NBA in live events. Free

iOS

Android

1 5 / Next Lock Screen Lets you see your calendar, missed calls, texts and control your music player, without having to unlock your phone. Free

6 / WRIO Keyboard WRIO = Write It Once. Reimagined bigger (and honeycomb shaped) keyboard that claims up to 70 per cent faster typing speed. £2.99

7 / War Tortoise Sadly, you don’t control an actual armour-plated reptile, but the next best thing: a heavy tank tooled up with rocket launchers in this shoot ’em up. Free

8 / Tennis Champs Returns Climb your way up by competing in tournaments in this 20-year-old Amiga “arcade classic” reimagined. Free

9 / Shake-It Alarm Scream at your phone or repeatedly tap the off button or shake it into silence with this alarm app. Set it to random for a truly terrible start to the day. Free

10 / Adobe Photoshop Fix Make like a glossy fashion mag and retouch your photos with “smooth”, “lighten”, “liquefy”, “defocus”, plus many other fixes. Free

11 / Open Bar! Simple flat shapes and soft colours add to the charm of this cocktail-based puzzle game. £2.29

12 / Viridi Race against time, test your wits and stay cool under pressure: all things you don’t need to do as you tend plants in this soothing time-waster. Free

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In-App purchases

13 / Punch Club Rocky-referencing fighting game where you manage a boxer through a series of local matches, while also tracking down a killer. £3.99

14 / Grammar Snob Irritate contacts with this message add-on that lets you annotate their misspelled words in a handwritten red teacher’s font. £0.79

15 / Cardboard Camera Create 360° images that you can view in VR using Google’s Cardboard headset. You can also share pics with friends. Free

16 / Untappd “Untappd — Discover beer”! Social media app that encourages you to find new craft beers and bars, then share them with buddies. Free

17 / Batman: Arkham Underworld Some say this represents a franchise nadir, but this app conversion is a faithful take with Bat-action aplenty. Free

18 / Wolfgang Members nominate podcast subjects, then vote on what gets made in this inspired radio platform backed by George Lamb and Rick Edwards. Free

19 / The New Yorker Today Constantly updating feed of everything The New Yorker produces — podcasts, videos, cartoons, articles — all in one place. Free

20 / Barrel Bring your iPhone lock screen “to life” by customising it with HD video wallpapers of either your own content, or someone else’s. Free

21 / BuriedTown Text-based zombie survival game set on an island. The unsettling action unfolds in black, white and (naturally) red. £0.79

22 / Layout From Instagram Create collages, resize, mirror, flip and tile up images from your camera tool with this photo-editing app for Instagram. Free

23 / Letterboxd Keep a diary of the films you’ve watched, compile lists then share via social media with this exquisitely designed cinephile’s app. Free

24 / Calendars 5 This daily planner and task manager features “natural language” input, ie, “Dave’s birthday this Saturday” and it’ll set the appointment for you. £4.99

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Words by Johnny Davis Illustrations by James Pryor

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33 / Formulr Connect to drivers, teams, championships, circuits and other fans with this smartly designed motorsport app. Free

34 / Rolo Calendar Calendar app that reimagines your day as a circular clock-style interface. Visualise exactly how you’re spending your time. Free

35 / Churchill Solitaire Play former prime minister Winston Churchill and his favourite card game as you take on missions from his career. Free

41 / Motion Stop-motion animation is now possible on no budget with this app that utilises your phone’s camera. Free

42 / Fear The Walking Dead: Dead Run Tactical game that puts you inside the LA familiar from the hit TV series, while you’re pursued by… oh, you know. Free

43 / Blue Plaques of London Use GPS to follow in the footsteps of London’s famous residents on themed tours, while learning their biographies. Free

47 / Kitchen Stories Cookery app with photo instructions, videos and logical categories such as: “All-time classics”, “20-minute dishes”, and so on. Free

48 / Cheatsheet Make a list of vital life details — Wi-Fi password, bike lock combination, wife’s birthday — and give each its own icon. Hey presto, it’s all there at a glance. Free

46 / Onefootball Track live scores and teams on your wrist. Useful for having a crafty update in situations where whipping your phone out isn’t possible. Free

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36 / Koko Social network for the stressed. Anonymously post life concerns, then get feedback. Sounds strange, but comes clinically supported. Free

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37 / Nanuleu Strategy game that lets you control magic trees protecting your land from invading forces, using minimalist pop-art graphics. £2.29

38 / Hyperburner Sci-fi flight simulator where you hurtle your spaceship through a series of increasingly narrow, futuristic tunnels. £2.29

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25 / Muviz Nav Bar Audio Visualizer Why not add a music visualiser to your Android nav bar? Then watch it merrily pulse in time to your sounds. Free

26 / DeskDock Free Link your PC and Android device together so you can share screens, clipboard and keyboard. Free

27 / Pocket Casts This puts Apple’s default app to shame. A podcast player that comes with a neat UI and is packed with features you didn’t know you needed. £2.99

28 / Google Translate With your phone’s camera this app translates text instantly in 29 languages. (Type and that number increases to 103). Free

29 / Love You To Bits Kosmo tries to patch things up with girlfriend Nova, literally, after her body is scattered in space. Awardwinning puzzler. £2.99

30 / Perchang Guide tiny balls around Rube Goldberg machinestyle assault courses in this punishing 3D riddler. Uh-oh, anti-gravity hoop! £1.49

31 / Fallen London Moody, word-based faux-Victorian game in which you must rescue a London that is “stolen by bats”. Free

32 / Wildfulness Spend more time with nature, albeit nature of the hand-drawn, immersively soundtracked variety, via this mindfulness app. £1.49

39 / Uncharted: Fortune Hunter Mobile version of popular PS game. Navigate hero Nathan Drake around puzzle boards to unlock keys and rewards. Free

40 / Heuristic Shakespeare — The Tempest The first of 37 apps arrives for Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary. Ian McKellen and co lend a voice. £4.49

44 / Sky Force Reloaded Compelling 3D makes this scrolling shooter one of the best around. Boost your plane with shields, bombs, guns and magnets. Free

45 / App in the Air Frequent flyer? Get airport gate and security wait times, track flights and even use the in-flight “courses” to do exercises and ward off DVT. Free

49 / Streaks The “workout anywhere” personal trainer that caters for the time-poor and equipmentfree. Apple Design Awards 2016 winner. £2.99

50 / Sworkit Choose strength, cardio, yoga or stretching workouts lasting between 5 and 60 minutes with this personalised video exercise app. Free

Style / Watches

Hot chocolate Shades of dark brown hit the sweet spot for winter’s watch colour trend

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01 01 Self-winding Calatrava 6000r, by Patek Philippe 37mm rose gold, chestnut alligator leather strap, £20,330 02 F-80, by Ferragamo 44mm stainless steel with gold IP treatment, brown calf leather and black caoutchouc strap, £950

Photographs by Sam Hofman

Ï Though the Seventies brought us many eminently forgettable things — avocado bathroom suites, fondue sets, The Osmonds — it did foist one oft-overlooked hue to the fore: brown. The beauty of brown is versatility. Brown shoes look good with most things (black suits aside); a brown tweed jacket works great with jeans and chinos; a deep suntan goes with everything. Brown watches are equally adaptable, and right now there are a stack to choose from. A great alternative to classic steel or predictable blue, a brown watch worn with a classic navy suit demonstrates self confidence and style. Here’s our pick of the best.

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Planet Ocean Co-Axial Master Chronometer, by Omega

WW1 Edición Limitada, by Bell & Ross

HyperChrome Automatic Chronograph, by Rado

Heritage Black Bay Bronze, by Tudor

42mm 18k red gold, brown alligator leather strap, £15,000

45mm ceramicstainless steel-PVD, ceramic bracelet, £3,650

43mm bronze, aged leather strap with bronze buckle, £2,730

43.5mm 18k Sedna gold, brown leather strap, £14,200

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Set design: Zena May Hendrick | See Stockists page for details

04

Watch Survey 2016

Win £5,000 to spend on a watch of your choice from The Watch Gallery

ENTER THE SURVEY AT

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Style / Food

THE ACCIDENTAL COOK

Caught by surprise Boar with cherries? Pineapple with liquorice? John Dory with orange? Esquire’s king of the kitchen Russell Norman on the pleasures of unlikely combinations

Ï Not so long ago I was at a dinner party thrown by a friend, who also happens to be a well-known chef. There is nothing quite like going to a professional cook’s home for supper — you know you’re in safe hands and that the last thing you need to worry about is the food. It’s not like that episode of Come Dine with Me when one would-be cook nearly killed his

Photographs by Chris Leah

fellow contestants by serving them raw chicken. No, with a chef you can count on good tucker and the chances are you’ll be licking your plate clean at the end of the meal. On this particular evening, though, there was a game theme. Officially, this season starts on 1 September with the hunting of partridge (after all the grouse have

Fish of the day: Russell Norman with two whole John Dory ready to fillet for his dish

been obliterated on the “Glorious” 12th of August), and continues until 1 October, when pheasant and woodcock are then considered fair game (hence the expression). Everything was going swimmingly until a middle course of wild boar risotto. It sounds great, doesn’t it? But then I read the small print: wild boar risotto with cherries. Now, as a cook, >

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Style / Food

I’m as adventurous as the next fellow, and I’m well aware that there is a long tradition of marrying meat with fruit, from pork with apple sauce to duck with orange, and even venison with apricot. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I’d eaten boar with cherry sauce in Tuscany, too, so there is a legitimate context and precedent. But I just found it odd contemplating fruit in a risotto. And when we ate the stuff, I detected a few flickers of surprise and bemusement around the table.

Odd ingredients and surprising combinations can be wonderful Odd ingredients and surprising combinations, just like wild boar and cherries, can sometimes be a wonderful revelation. I remember raising an eyebrow when someone first suggested I try pineapple with liquorice but, oh my God, what a flavour combination. But as a traditionalist, I tend to play it safe and avoid anything surprising or controversial. When I see an incongruous ingredient on a menu or in a recipe, I’m reminded of the fictional character Gerald Samper, James Hamilton-Paterson’s appalling hero in the superlative comic novel Cooking with Fernet Branca. Samper is convinced of his own kitchen prowess and concocts, among other delights, “garlic ice-cream”, “mussels in chocolate” and his masterpiece, “alien pie” — a complex dish flavoured with smoked cat, a single drop of

paraffin and garnished with “a jaunty buzzard’s feather”. Which brings me to this month’s recipe. You’ll be glad to hear there’s no smoked cat; it’s actually an adaptation of a dish I’ve sampled several times at one of my favourite restaurants in Venice, Trattoria Corte Sconta. The reason it might give you pause, though, is the inclusion of pink peppercorns and orange juice, not to mention a slice of orange as a garnish. “Fish and fruit!” I hear you say. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as the saying goes, and this colourful preparation of John Dory, as well as being a looker, is delicious. Russell Norman is the founder of Polpo and Spuntino; Instagram: russell_norman; russellnorman.net

John Dory with pink peppercorns Fruits de mer: Norman shows how peppercorns and orange make an unexpectedly superb sauce for pan-fried fish

Serves 4 • 4 fillets of John Dory • 1 garlic clove, very finely sliced • 50ml fish stock • 70ml orange juice • 50ml lemon juice • Small handful of pink peppercorns • Small handful of herbs: mint, dill, basil and sage (combined) • 4 peeled segments of orange (to garnish) • Extra virgin olive oil • Flaky sea salt • Ground black pepper Method 1. Carefully chop the herbs, discarding any stalky bits. Set aside. 2. Put two tablespoons of olive oil into a large shallow pan. It is important you have a lid that fits. Carefully lay the four fillets into the pan and scatter over the garlic slices. Add a good pinch of salt and pepper before sprinkling the chopped herbs over the fish. Place the pan on a medium heat. 3. When the pan starts to sizzle, add the stock, lemon juice and orange juice, then cover with the lid. 4. After no more than four minutes, remove the fillets and lay onto four warmed plates. Then turn the heat up to its highest setting, add the peppercorns, squashing some between your finger and thumb, and bubble the juices for a couple of minutes until they start to reduce and turn syrupy. 5. Remove pan from the heat and pour the sauce over the fillets equally. Garnish each with a segment of orange before serving.

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Style / Fashion

Dark grey wool trousers, £970

White cotton shirt, £310

Brown acetate sunglasses, £330

Mustard/black tweed-wool double-breasted jacket, £1,355

Black crocodile leather briefcase, £17,765

Haze printed shearlingcollared jacket, £4,175

Teal velvet blazer, £1,625; teal velvet trousers, £580

Dark grey felt hat, £325

Director’s cut Bottega Veneta’s Tomas Maier marks 15 years in charge with a flawless AW ’16 collection Black calf-leather boots, £775

Ï The continued success of Bottega Veneta, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary, is down in no small part to the consistent brilliance of its German creative director, Tomas Maier. Having been at the brand’s helm for the past 15 years, Maier’s slouchy, off-duty aesthetic and impeccable attention to detail is perfectly delivered in Bottega’s AW ’16 collection. Here, to honour Maier’s 15 years, we’ve selected 15 standout pieces from this anniversary collection (best avoid sharing the bowling sneakers).

Ivory/grey crêpe tie, £135

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Multicoloured calf-leather bowling sneakers, £410

Black cashmere-silk sweater, £1,125

Ash suede duffel bag, £2,595

Hearst Studios | See Stockists page for details

Black cashmere-wool coat, £2,280

Multicoloured wool blouson, £930

Style / Drinks

Saving the date Wine choices to charm Ï A romantic evening calls for a suitably impressive bottle to enliven the conversation while setting an appropriate mood (and not breaking the bank). To help you make the right choice, we’ve asked some of London’s most knowledgable experts to recommend their date night picks for under £50.

1 | Rioja 2014, Bodegas Exopto By Colin Thorne (Vagabond Wines) — “Those fluent in Latin will have spotted ‘exopto’ means ‘to desire eagerly’. Any corollary outcomes from drinking this modern Rioja are subject to your usual flair, though. Based around Graciano, the most diva-like of grapes permitted in Rioja production, it rumbles like Lee Marvin’s voice after a heavy night of Havana cigars but, thankfully, smells far better. A solid muscular frame cossets the dark plum and berry fruit well before easing into a finish that's refined and long.” £40/75cl vagabondwines.co.uk

2 | Champagne Entre Ciel et Terre Brut NV, Francoise Bedel By Sandia Chang (Bubbledogs and Kitchen Table) — “Its name translates as ‘Between Heaven and Earth’ and the backstory represents love in the purest form, between mother and son: when Françoise Bedel found a cure for her son’s illness in holistic medicine, she dedicated her life to making wine in the most organic and biodynamic way. One of my favourite Champagnes, it’s aged longer than most and is complex with notes of ripe autumn fruits, spice and toasted rye bread.” £42/75cl (in a case of 6), winedirect.co.uk

3 | Kydonitsa Barrique 2015, Ligas By Isabelle Legeron (Raw Wine) — “Kydonitsa is a rare, forgotten white grape variety that had its heyday in Byzantine times. This homage, by the Ligas family from near Thessaloniki in northern Greece, is flavoursome with rich Med flavours (honey, wild herbs and fragrant acacia blossoms). Perfect on a winter evening, it is sure to bring back memories of summer. It’s a precious bottle as only one barrel was made (400 bottles).” £30/75cl, buonvino.co.uk

4 | Bannockburn Pinot Noir 2014, Mt Difficulty By Charles Metcalfe (International Wine Challenge) — “It’s hard to get top Pinot Noir results away from its native Burgundy but New Zealand comes nearest. And this lush, black cherry-fruited example from Central Otago is about as seductive as Pinot Noir gets.” £24/75cl, nzhouseofwine.co.uk

5 | Puligny-Montrachet 2014, Jacques Carillon Jamie Waugh (Fortnum & Mason) — “A most sensual white wine, enough to impress the very finest date. Its deliciously toasty nose, with lively apple fruit and a long rich finish, pairs beautifully with oysters .” £50/75cl, fortnumandmason.com

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Words by Rachel Fellows

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Photograph by Aiala Hernando

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Style / Drinks

6 | Vin de Pays du Gard Rouge 2009, Roc d’Anglade; 3 En Rama Manzanilla Sanlúcar de Barrameda 2016, Lustau By Ruth Spivey (Wine Car Boot) — “With a budget of up to £50, I’d always take two bottles, demonstrating generosity of spirit and enthusiasm for drinking. This pair reveals eclectic taste, good knowledge and love of food and nature. You could bookend the red with the sherry, or finish it at breakfast, should things go especially well!” Roc d’Anglade, £30/75cl, bbr.com; En Rama, £16/50cl, harveynichols.com

7 | Lalama Ribeira Sacra 2010, Dominio do Bibei By Emily Harman (Vina Lupa) — “There is nothing quite like a magnum to pique interest. Who says bigger isn’t better? Lalama is from Ribeira Sacra in north-west Spain. It is dominated by the Mencia grape: medium bodied, with delicate aromatics, intense minerality, fine tannins. It’s pure and subtle, the antithesis of Spain’s most famous Riojas, Ribera del Duero and Priorat. A pleasure to drink with or without food, or even chilled.” £45/magnum, handford.net

8 | Roncaglia Colli Pesarese 2015, Fattoria Mancini By Michael Simms (Sartoria) — “Find out if your date is a wine buff interested in technical details or just drinking the stuff. This is a mid-weight, Italian dry white with a gently floral palate and zesty finish. Describing the stunning Adriatic views from the vineyards above Pesaro often leads to reminiscing of holidays in Italy, so it’s great for conversation.” £45/75cl, sartoria-restaurant.co.uk

9 | Pays d’Oc Blanc 2012, Mas Champart By Mark Pardoe MW (Berry Bros & Rudd) — “Try something understated, not mainstream, and made with love. Isabelle and Mathieu Champart make wonderful wine at their beautifully situated farm in Saint-Chinian, southern France. I’d choose their white. Very old vine Terret gives the individuality: verbena, spring flowers and honeysuckle, then a honeyed, ripe palate and teasing twist of salinity on the finish. It unfolds into the second or third glass; always a reason to try a little more. A perfect excuse on a first date.” £19/75cl, bbr.com

10 | San Lorenzo Etna Rosso 2012, Girolamo Russo By Julia Oudill (Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels) — “I would be very surprised if the person I am dating picked something well known. Rather, I imagine something hard to find, a less famous appellation or an unknown grape; part of the fun and intrigue in wine is finding something new. This wine is made with Nerello Mascalese, and only about 500 bottles are produced each year. It’s very smooth; silky tannins with red cherry flavour, balsamic essence, sweet spices and tobacco.” £35/75cl, uvinum.co.uk

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Style / Travel

THE BARBER DOSSIER

Dubai

Catalin Marin | Stocksy

You’re thinking sand dunes, camels and Wags. What if we said sublime seafood, surfing, parachuting and even skiing…

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Style / Travel

Ï As a self-confessed travel snob, a little shiver used to go down my

Shop

See

spine at the mention of Dubai. “No culture,” I’d protest. “No seasons. No soul.” But after spending a couple of days there recently, I realise the place serves a purpose, namely providing nailed-on good weather within easy reach of the predictably miserable British winter. Soulless as much of the experience can be, if you know where to look (very, very carefully) you’ll find good, uncomplicated fun and even the odd hint of sophistication. In order to maintain any last vestiges of credibility as a travel writer, this page will self-destruct in five seconds… Tom Barber is a founder of the award-winning originaltravel.co.uk

Adventure HQ, in the Times Square Center shopping mall, is a must for outdoor lovers, with top clobber for divers, kayakers, cyclists and walkers. Even better, it has a 30ft climbing wall so you can try out those new Red Chili Durango climbing-shoes that you’ll never, ever, wear again.

The humbled hubris of Dubai on a skydive over The World, the vast artificial island complex unfinished since 2008’s financial crash. The blue skies make it an excellent place to learn to parachute and from 4,000ft you get spectacular views of a city that barely existed just 40 years ago.

Stay

One&Only Royal Mirage guest room

Despite competition from endless new hotels — even including its esteemed sister property on The Palm — the One&Only Royal Mirage remains the go-to hotel in Dubai thanks to its spacious feel, 65 acres of lovely gardens, a decent beach (where the Jetty Lounge is great for an evening cocktail) and a selection of excellent restaurants. Accommodation is across three buildings, with families loving The Palace — so you’ll be in the sophisticated Residence & Spa. oneandonlyresorts.com

The Maine Oyster Bar & Grill is a lovingly recreated slice of Waspy East Coast Americana. The bar alone warrants an entry on this list (distressed brickwork; wide range of liquors; hirsute, bow-tied, hipster staff, you know the drill) but we’re here for the excellent seafood towers of Canadian snow crab, prawns, oysters and scallop ceviche. Even its low key location — in the car park around the back of the Hilton DoubleTree Hotel — is quaintly endearing. themaine.ae

Al Maha desert hotel

Lunch In a city where authenticity is in scarce supply, Zuma’s izakaya (a Japanese gastropub) cuisine is right on the money. Try the sliced seabass with salmon roe, yuzu and truffle oil if you’re not convinced. That a restaurant in the financial district can draw so many devotees is true testament to the high quality of its food. The interior — elevated ceiling, granite block sushi counter and a huge bamboo sculpture — runs the grub a close second. zumarestaurant.com

Dine

When in... Get far from the madding crowd while staying at the luxurious Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa. The suites at this tranquil spot in the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve all come with their own private pools, from which you can observe Arabian oryx grazing nearby. Watch the camp’s daily falconry display to see a fine example of man and wild animal working in graceful harmony. al-maha.com

Avoid

Steak at The Maine grill

Summer. It’s hotter than Hades.

Party

Do

Drink

Why now?

Not far from Cove Beach is the Dubai franchise of London’s Mahiki club. There’s still the Polynesian theme and lethal treasure chest cocktails, but fewer young Sloane Rangers. There’s also no VIP area or face control on the door, which makes a refreshing change. mahiki.com

Dubai has constructed island archipelagos, a vast indoor ski centre, and now a surf wave. In the desert. At Al Ain, enjoy the perfect wave break of your choosing — low rollers, 10-footers, A-frames, close-outs for the pros — all without anyone dropping in on you. wadiadventure.ae

Almost every bar or restaurant in Dubai is amalgamated to a hotel. Cove Beach is on the white sand in front of the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. Order a bottle of Château Léoube rosé and settle into a beach sofa to watch the sunset as the bar DJ does his finest Café del Mar impression. covebeach.com

Because from now until April is the country’s camel-racing season and the so-called ships of the desert go more like shit off a shovel when they put their minds to it. If you want to know what happens to the losers, head to Switch, a restaurant that does a fine line in camel tenderloin.

Get there: BA, Virgin Atlantic and Emirates all fly direct and daily to Dubai: britishairways.com; virgin-atlantic.com; emirates.com 82

Style / Fashion

Roll your sleeves up

See Stockists page for details

It’s business class all the way courtesy of Thomas Pink

Ï Statement dressing is back. Right now, for office dress code, it’s about asserting yourself with slick tailoring. With seven styles, Thomas Pink’s Business Collection is leading the charge. For the young gun there’s the “Bulldog” with tougher-than-average buttons. For the CEO, there’s the “Imperial 200S”, made in the UK from superfine Italian two-fold cotton and fitted with mother of pearl buttons. In between are five further styles of varying fits, fabrics and prices. Some cannot be creased, others have fray-resistant collars and cuffs, and because it’s Thomas Pink, you know each will be up to major merger standard.

Photograph by Jody Todd

Thomas Pink Business Collection, £45—£225

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Style / Health

THE MACKLIN REGIME

The hurt blocker All pain and no train scuppers many a sportsman but injury prevention is possible, says Tom Macklin

Injury: Lower back/lumbar facet joint. Symptoms: Acute localised lower back pain with no pain past the buttocks. Bent forward, unable to stand tall. Causes: Poor lifting technique leads to increased lumbar extension and overuse of the paraspinal muscles. Prehab: Work with a PT on a bespoke gym programme to correct technique. Stretch and don’t overload the back. Improve desk posture at work. Rehab: Work on your movement with a physio, while a sports massage will release tension. Opt for magnesium baths, lower abdominal work and pelvic position control. Tip: The TriggerPoint MB5 massage ball relieves muscle tension in all the areas that contribute to lower back pain. £24, tptherapy.com

a serious sports injury is a devastating blow. Knowing which specialist to see, getting a diagnosis (often a long and problematic process) and spending time away from the sport you love all adds to the stress. However, correcting poor technique and identifying its symptoms will help you avoid such trauma. Here, Jonathan Codling, a specialist musculoskeletal physiotherapist at Third Space, explains the best ways to prevent and treat four of the most common sporting injuries.

Gym Injury: Shoulder rotator cuff. Symptoms: Sharp localised shoulder pain and limited range of shoulder movement. Causes: Over-dominant chest muscles and weakness of the shoulder and rotator cuff muscles. Other causes include lifting heavy weights, bad technique and overloading the tendon. Prehab: Better technique and warm up. Stretch pectoral muscles regularly. Balance chest and shoulder work. Rehab: Directly after the injury use ice, ibuprofen and stretch. Physio work will help strengthen the rotator cuff muscles, while unstable shoulder weight exercises will increase rotator cuff activity. Tip: MuJo Fitness supplies several rehab machines that benefit this specific injury. mujofitness.com

Running

Cycling

Injury: Achilles tendinopathies (reactive).

Injury: Patellofemoral pain (PFP).

Symptoms: Acute instant pain in the Achilles tendon.

Symptoms: Pain around, behind or under the kneecap.

Causes: Overloading of the Achilles tendon via hill sprints and long-distance running. Bad foot posture.

Causes: Bad cleat positioning or poor saddle and handlebar set-up on bike. It could also be quad/glute weakness, reduced pelvis control, poor patella tracking, biomechanical problems or muscle tightness.

Prehab: Work with an expert to correct running technique. Stretch pre- and post-run. Strengthen the calf muscles with calf raises and buy specialist trainers. Rehab: Manage the injury via rest, ibuprofen, green tea and ice. Work with a physio on isometric exercises or see a sports podiatrist to identify any biomechanical problems. Tip: The Garmin Forerunner 6300 tracks ground contact time balance, stride length and vertical ratio to give you insight into your running form. £310, garmin.com

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Prehab: Regular professional bike fittings will ensure correct riding position and technique. Build leg muscle mass and do foam rolling post-exercise. Rehab: Work with a physio to strengthen quad muscles and improve balance on the injured leg. Ensure you tape the kneecap during recovery. Tip: Get your bike fitted by professionals such as those at Velorution in north London. velorution.com

Thanks to Third Space Medical: thirdspace.london/soho/medical

Gym

Ï As all gym-goers, runners and cyclists are aware,

Style / News

Your month in menswear

Khaki cotton hooded coat, £200; black cotton sweatshirt, £35; khaki wool shacket, £60; black denim jeans, £60; orange/red cotton diamond print T-shirt, £25, all by Kenzo x H&M hm.com

H&M looks east, Tateossian looks skywards and Cartier looks the part in Manhattan

01 Kenzo x H&M High fashion hits the high street

/ In light of its past collaborations with Versace, Alexander Wang and Balmain, H&M clearly likes to work with statement-making brands. The trend continues in AW ’16 as the high street heavyweight joins forces with Kenzo, the Japanese-cumParisian label with a penchant for playful prints and colours. The collection features iconic patterns and archival prints on a series of T-shirts, sweats, outerwear and accessories. Highlights include the patterned sweaters, the black bomber and the mad-collared parka. The green leopard-print boilersuit might be a stretch, but you’ve got to love the fact it even exists. The collection launches on 3 November.

02 Cartier in New York

03 Tateossian

Fifth Avenue flagship reawakens in sleepless city

The cuff link king reaches for the stars

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It’s been two-and-a-half years since Cartier’s Manhattan Mansion last opened its doors. The boutique space has been expanded to four-times its former size, and two new floors have been added. Free Wi-Fi facilitates a floor directory and list of product highlights; the shopping experience has clearly been brought bang up to date. However, the early 20th-century glamour remains, and that, after all, is why we love Cartier. 653 Fifth Avenue, New York; cartier.com

The meteorites that Tateossian (known as the “king of cufflinks”)

is using elements from in its new Interstellar collection of jewellery started out on the moon, but found their way to Earth at some point in their four billion-year lifespans. Fragments of the rocks have now been placed into

a series of gold and silver pieces, with the standout creation being these Lunar Breccia cufflinks, which also have 125 pave diamonds set into the bezel. Each piece is subtle and one of a kind, and about as luxurious as luxury gets.

Lunar Breccia cufflinks, £15,000, by Tateossian tateossian.com Diamond digs: the Oak Room in Cartier’s newly reopened New York Mansion

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Style / News

Black leather Chuck II Boots, £95, by Converse converse.com

Step change Premium new shoes from prestige labels mean your feet are in safe hands

Brown leather/alligator skin oxford shoes; brown leather double monk strap shoes; brown leather monk strap boots, from £590, all from the Tramezza collection by Salvatore Ferragamo tramezza.ferragamo.com

Converse Chuck II boots Following last year’s launch of the lighter, tougher and more comfortable Chuck Taylor shoe (the Chuck II), the smart people at Converse have taken customer satisfaction to a new level with the announcement of the Chuck II Boot. It has the Nike Lunarlon insole and non-slip tongue we’re now accustomed to, but its outer is cut from waterproof leather and lined with a waterproof neoprene bootie that keeps heat in and the elements out. It also has a new chunky sole to make sure there’s zero slippage — whatever the surface.

Black leather Veldt Gibson shoes, £420; burgundy leather Veldt derby boots, £425, both by Grenson grenson.com

Ferragamo made-tomeasure Tramezza Each shoe in Salvatore Ferragamo’s Tramezza collection has leather between the sole and the insole, replacing the oft-used cork, thus allowing for improved softness. It takes a week to make a single pair. Better still, shoes from the range are available madeto-order, enabling you to choose material, colour and buckle finish on the oxford, monk strap and the double monk strap. Not personal enough? You can even have your initials etched on to the sole.

Grenson Veldt boots Boots can be tricky — the line between too chunky and too slight is a tough one to tread; and consistent quality should always be a concern. It seems, though, that Grenson has nailed it with its new Veldts. Based on the Veldtschoen (“bush shoe”) worn by Afrikaner soldiers in the Boer Wars, their Russian reindeer leather uppers are stitched directly to the commando sole, making them reliably waterproof. The Veldt comes as derby boot or Gibson shoe, with both available in black or burgundy.

Ivory suede hightop sneakers, £445, by Alexander McQueen alexander mcqueen.com

The season’s standout socks Falke x Liberty Falke has put its superior sock technology into a collaboration with London’s famed department store. So reimaginings of the house’s iconic print can be worn with your shoes all autumn. £28, falke.com; liberty.co.uk

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Hearst Studios

McQueen trainers The rules of modern menswear dictate that good trainers are just as important as good shoes, even in the colder winter months. With that in mind, cast your eyes over the latest creation from Alexander McQueen, taken from the AW ’16 collection. Available in black or ivory suede, they feature a rubber-capped toe (handy for wet pavements), subtle ribbon detailing on the upper and a silver metal spine on the heel. Our tip is to wear them with slim dark jeans, a round-neck knit and a soft-shouldered blazer.

Style / Fashion

Right up Bond’s street The new Aston Martin by Hackett collection vanquishes other car/clothes collaborations

Ï In the past, when car-makers Hearst Studios | See Stockists page for details

Grey wool blazer, £700; charcoal long-sleeved polo shirt, £160; grey wool trousers, £170

Photographs by Chris Floyd

turned their hands to clothing tie-ins the results were garish at best, full of boldly coloured polo shirts emblazoned with oversized racing numbers, bonnet badges and sponsor logos. But with its new collection for autumn/winter 2016, Aston Martin has broken the mould. Produced with Hackett, the 14-piece collection comprises considered, understated, timelessly stylish outerwear, knitwear, shirts, trousers and accessories

designed to look good anywhere, not just behind the wheel of a supercar. For example, the belted field jacket — for Esquire, the standout piece of the collection — is cut from supple tan nubuck, so it will develop a handsome patina as it’s worn in over the years. In addition, the chinos are cut slim (but not skinny), from cashmere cotton, making them exceptionally comfortable, while the cashmere knitwear is unfussy and soft. > Marek Reichman, Aston Martin’s

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chief creative officer and design director, says: “Hackett is a true tailoring-based brand that holds the traditional values of cut, material choice and a timeless nature in the same way Aston Martin focuses on proportion and beauty to produce handbuilt cars that are classics from their inception. We wanted an exciting capsule collection that would provide the perfect complement to a wardrobe, clothes that have an element of materialscience luxury, and are just cool to wear.” hackett.com; the Aston Martin by Hackett collection is also available at Hackett stores, and the Aston Martin flagship store on Old Bond Street, London W1

Tan bonded nubuck field jacket, £1,650; navy cashmere roll-neck, £160; taupe cotton-cashmere chinos, £170

Navy laser-cut mac with removable down liner, £1,100; navy bonded merino-wool knit, £700; blue cashmere flannel shirt, £185; grey wool trousers, £170

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Edited by MIRANDA COLLINGE

Culture FILM / MUSIC / BOOKS / TELEVISION / ART

Robot wars: Ed Harris, back to camera, is the lethal Man in Black in the new adaptation of Westworld

Haven’t we been here before? THE WESTWORLD REMAKE HITS TELEVISION

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Paranoid androids: Thandie Newton and Rodrigo Santoro as sentient robots in the TV reworking of the 1973 classic starring Yul Brynner, left

Ï Western-sci-fi hybrid-epic Westworld has come riding into town as the hottest show on TV since, well, the last one, and has impeccable credentials both in and behind the scenes. Based on the 1973 film starring Yul Brynner, Westworld is set in a theme park where humans play out their darkest fantasies on unwitting robots, until a technical malfunction upsets the power balance dramatically. This update, starring Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton and Anthony Hopkins, has been percolating for the two decades since JJ Abrams sat down with Michael Crichton, writer of the original book and director of the film, to discuss a remake. Now a crack husband-and-wife team, Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan — writer of, among others, Interstellar and The Dark Knight — have turned it into a TV series with Abrams executive producing. It is rumoured five series are already mapped out. The excellent first episode is both knottily intriguing and light on its feet in terms of exposition. But there are also times when we, like the robots in Westworld, might wonder: haven’t we been here before? Of course, the premise will be familiar to those who watched the original movie and have had nightmares about Brynner’s homicidal rogue robot ever since. The slow pacing of TV allows for differences, though, and Nolan and Joy have taken the clever step of reversing the film’s point of view; initially at least, we experience Westworld

through the eyes of the robots, or “hosts”, who have no idea they’re robots at all. The ambition and scope of Westworld has drawn comparisons to Game of Thrones, due to lavish landscapes and a proliferating menu of characters played by an international cast. It also has an increasingly twisty plot, and tons of violence and nudity. But with its dependency on mystery and suspense, perhaps Westworld actually has more in common with Lost. And, wait, as a cult film that has taken on an extra dimension on the small screen, isn’t it a bit like Fargo? And

don’t those grisly opening credits remind you of Six Feet Under? And the symbols and scary desert churches, aren’t they a bit True Detective? And those flash-forwards at the start of episodes, that’s totally Breaking Bad. Yes, Westworld has resonances of other successful TV shows, even if it’s sometimes just a faint glint in the circuitry. But should that affect your enjoyment? Not one iota. And anyway, as it no doubt says in the Host Repair Manual, if it ain’t broke... —

Westworld is on Sky Atlantic, Tuesdays at 9pm

Factory girl JULIA JACKLIN’S FINE DEBUT IS GOOD REASON TO QUIT HER DAY JOB A few months ago, you’d have found Julia Jacklin slogging away in an essential oils factory in Sydney. Now, you’ll find her touring her debut album Don’t Let the Kids Win; she visits the UK in November. The cosmetic industry’s loss is undoubtedly the music industry’s gain, as Jacklin’s output thus far is a treat: this is a delicate gem of an album that slowly reveals its inner

toughness. Jacklin has a voice made for alt-country music — she can coo like a turtle dove and trill like a lark — and used to sing in an indie-Appalachian folk band. Don’t Let the Kids Win has further nods to US culture: notably the end-of-the-prom lull of singles “Pool Party” and “Leadlight”. But where the album really shows its strength is in the subtle experiments with genre and

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sound: the driving indie-pop of “Coming of Age” contrasts beautifully with the drowsy reverb on the title track. Throw in Jacklin’s knack for lyrics (even Zach Braff somehow gets worked into a song) and it’s an intriguing debut, perhaps essential. — Don’t Let the Kids Win (Transgressive) is out now

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Dope fiend: Hitler’s Third Reich was partly fuelled by abundant narcotics, suggests author Norman Ohler, left, in Blitzed

The war. On drugs ACCORDING TO A FASCINATING NEW BOOK, THE NAZIS WERE HIGH ON THEIR OWN SUPPLY The Nazis were all on drugs! So far, so sensationalist but German writer Norman Ohler’s absorbing new non-fiction book, Blitzed, makes the convincing argument that the Nazis’ use of chemical stimulants, from the infantry all the way up to the Führer himself, played a crucial role in the successes, and failures, of the Third Reich. Ohler looks at this phenomenon through two lenses. The first is wider: considering the ways the Germans sought to boost the performance and stamina of troops with stimulants. Ohler suggests the capitulation of France in 1940 was due to the Wehrmacht being given Pervitin, a pill whose active ingredient was methamphetamine, or crystal meth. The drug gave German forces a sense of fearlessness and drastically decreased the need for sleep, meaning the panzers could roll to the Belgian-French border in just three days — much faster than the French had ever thought possible. The second strand of Ohler’s story has a smaller focus, though one intrinsically linked to the bigger picture. It concerns the complicated relationship between Adolf Hitler and his physician, Dr Theodor Morell, who — Ohler claims — turned the Führer from a vegetarian ascetic to a dribbling addict over the nine years in which Hitler was in his “care”. During a chance meeting at a dinner party, Hitler mentioned his chronic intestinal pains and Morell suggested he try Mutaflor, a reasonably effective probiotic still in use today. Its success led the Führer to demand stronger, quicker treatments from Morell for a variety of symptoms. By the time he died, says Ohler, Hitler had become a regular, even dependent, user of opiates and cocaine, even mixing the two as a “classic speedball”.

By his death, Hitler had become a regular user of opiates and cocaine Ohler argues that the Führer’s drug use had a direct impact on certain outcomes of the war. At a meeting with Mussolini in 1943, at which Il Duce had planned to tell Hitler that Italy should leave the war, the dosed-up Nazi boss talked incessantly for three hours. Mussolini wasn’t able to get a word in, and Italy stayed put. Where things get murkier, as Ohler knows, is when considering how much an intoxicated individual should be held responsible for his actions. Could chemical psychosis be used to explain the barbaric madness of, say, the

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Final Solution? Ohler makes his feelings on this particular point unequivocally clear. It wouldn’t have been desirable in Nazi Germany, of course, for the Wehrmacht’s strength and bravery to be explained as nothing but a chemical high, or for Hitler to be seen as buoyed by something other than the National Socialist dream. As a result, documentation from the time is patchy, and Ohler’s research ranges from the concrete: typed orders for huge quantities of Pervitin to be sent to exhausted frontline units; to the questionable: which substance was Morell disguising when he wrote that he’d injected Hitler with “X”?; to the speculative: could Hitler’s erratic behaviour towards the end of the war be indicative of drug withdrawal? Some of these questions will resist a definitive answern but Ohler’s book offers an intriguing angle on the motives and machinations of the Nazis and their leader. —

Blitzed (Allen Lane) by Norman Ohler is out now

His dark materials: Charlie Brooker’s drama series Black Mirror returns to screens this autumn

‘I’m sure I come across like some kind of Unabomber, sat in a cave…’ SOME THOUGHTS ON THE IMMINENT TECHNOLOGICAL APOCALYPSE, WITH CHARLIE BROOKER

Charlie Brooker words by Sam Parker | Getty

As season three of his never less than terrifying — and often very funny — technology dystopia series Black Mirror moves from Channel 4 to Netflix and doubles to a six-episode run, Charlie Brooker reflects on life as the screenwriter of our digital nightmares. ESQUIRE: Some of the new Black Mirror episodes have quite an optimistic tone. Are you coming round to the idea that technology isn’t that bad after all? CHARLIE BROOKER: I’ve never thought that really! I’m sure I come across like some kind of Unabomber, sat in a cave somewhere still angry about typewriters. But I’m actually fascinated by technology. I think it’s an amazing set of tools we’ve invented. What I am is a neurotic worrier, so I project all sorts of anxieties onto those tools. ESQ: One of the episodes, “Nosedive”, is about a spectacular social mediainduced meltdown. Take it you’re not a fan, then? CB: I think, as a species, we’re still figuring out how to use social media. We have to, because it’s not going to go away but it is weird how it has all evolved. I really miss “meh”. Remember, pre-Twitter, when everything was, like, “meh”? Nobody says that any more! Everything’s either “shit” or “brilliant”, it’s either a disaster or it’s won the internet. ESQ: Why do you think that is? CB: I guess because now these platforms reward you for being entertaining as an individual, so everyone exaggerates and tries to outdo each other to be more outraged, more pissed off. It doesn’t feel real, a lot of that. Politically, it feels like we’re all retreating into tribes. Either we’ll figure it out eventually, or we’ll end up just hacking at each other in a big field somewhere. Hopefully not the latter. ESQ: Give us the lowdown on the new episodes. No spoilers, mind. CB: Of course not. OK, so “San Junipero” is like a coming-of-age story set in the Eighties that almost plays out like a homage to a John Hughes movie; “Shut Up and Dance” is a grimy, sort of kitchen-sink thriller with no sci-fi element at all; “Nosedive” is a weird, Truman Show-esque social satire; “Men Against Fire” is a sort of metaphorical war movie; “Playtest” is like a video

game-related Evil Dead II and “Hated in the Nation” is a Scandi-noir, nearfuture London detective story. ESQ: What’s changed by moving over to Netflix? CB: Well, we’re working on a slightly bigger canvas this time. One of the episodes, “Hating the Nation”, is feature length. And half of them are set in America, so that’s different. But don’t worry, there are some grimy bits set in London, too. We’ve not gone completely saccharine. ESQ: Do American audiences “get it”? Black Mirror is pretty British…

CB: It’s travelled better than we thought. They just have a different take on it. Something like “Shut Up and Dance”, which was shot in Hounslow and Twickenham and very recognisably grungy bits of London — to them, must be exotic. Like when we watch The Wire. ESQ: In 2011, you wrote an episode [“The National Anthem”] in which a prime minister was embroiled in a pig sex scandal. Last year, it happened for real. What’s going on there? CB: I have no idea. I remember my phone thrumming with a thousand texts saying: “Have you seen this?!”

‘If I think about Donald Trump my brain immediately leaps forward to a mushroom cloud’ 105

A lot of people said I must have known something because it was too weird to be a coincidence. I thought it was too weird to be a coincidence too, so therefore maybe reality is some kind of dream I’m having — which isn’t a healthy thought to have, really. ESQ: So what are you trying to do with Black Mirror? Just entertain us, or offer telling parables about modern life? CB: The show rarely presents any solutions, it just sort of revels in a problem. I don’t have any answers, just worries. Who couldn’t be worried about the world right now? I’ve had sleepless nights thinking about Donald Trump because my brain immediately leaps forward to a mushroom cloud going off. It’s like: “Trump’ll win, mushroom cloud, what order do I have to smother my own children in?” Anyway, I’m sure it’ll be all right. — Black Mirror is released on Netflix on 21 October

Promotion / Clarks

The new black Extraordinary construction with modernist design — introducing the Black Edit from Clarks Ï Ever since 1825, Clarks has been creating stylish, innovative, exceptionally well-made footwear for men who know how to dress, and its new Black Edit capsule collection is the perfect example. From overtime in the office to a variety of social events, the Black Edit range is the smart dress option that every man should have in their wardrobe right now. The dress shoes in the collection, for example, combine exquisite form with luxurious feel thanks to Clarks’ expert craftsmanship. Created on hand-carved wooden lasts and cut from premium leather, many of the shoes also feature Clarks’ “Cushion Plus” system — a dualdensity padding in the sole that provides constant comfort for the wearer, whatever the occasion. When considering the immaculate design of the Swinley Cap and the Swinley Mid, it’s hard to argue against the Black Edit as one of Clarks’ sleekest, most progressive men’s collections to date. Best of all, though, the collection is adaptable, allowing you to wear any of the shoes with almost any look you put together.

Location: Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, London E1

Left: navy velvet blazer, £90, by Topman. Black cotton T-shirt, model’s own. Navy diamond print silk scarf, £190, by Hardy Amies. Black wool trousers, £50, by Topman. Black leather Swinley Cap, £95, by Clarks. Black cotton socks, £12, by Falke Left, below: navy check wool suit, from £395, by Hardy Amies. Black leather Swinley Cap, £95, by Clarks. Black cotton socks, £12, by Falke Below: blue wool jacket, £110; blue track top, £35; white cotton shirt, £32; blue wool trousers, £50, all by Topman. Black leather Swinley Mid, £100, by Clarks. Black cotton socks, £12, by Falke

Shoes such as the Swinley Cap and Swinley Mid from Clarks’ Black Edit collection are the perfect choice when it comes to completing your outfit, whether it’s a formal look you favour, or an attempt at style innovation

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Photographs by Mattias Björklund

Culture

US and them: some hits and misses for John Michael McDonagh and Andrea Arnold in their individual attempts at the ‘American movie’

American hustle JUST WHY IS THE GREAT AMERICAN MOVIE SO HARD FOR NON-AMERICAN FILM-MAKERS TO CRACK?

Two intriguing movies arrive this month, both of which explore the underside of American life and both of which bristle with talent and promise. First up is War on Everyone, from Anglo-Irish writer and director John Michael McDonagh; a week later comes American Honey, from British writer and director Andrea Arnold. These two auteurs — a lofty term perhaps, but one that suits Arnold certainly — have already had critical success with films set closer to home. McDonagh has made two highly respected black comedies starring Brendan Gleeson: The Guard in 2011 and Calvary in 2014, about an Irish policeman and an Irish priest respectively. Arnold made Red Road in 2006 and Fish Tank in 2009, both exquisite, naturalistic studies of feisty female leads living difficult, deprived lives. The Guard became the most successful

Irish independent movie of all time; Fish Tank won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2009 and the Bafta for “Outstanding British Film” in 2010. So perhaps it was inevitable that these two would seek larger spoils. Just as there has always been a steady stream of British pop groups crossing the Atlantic to prove themselves on a bigger stage, so too is there an impulse for filmmakers to ply their trade Stateside; it is, after all, where most of the serious money is. While British directors such as Joe Wright and Christopher Nolan have been able to capitalise on reputations for lush period pieces and smarter-than-average action films, for indier, artier directors with traditionally smaller budgets and more esoteric stories, the pearly gates to the US market are harder to open. Both McDonagh and Arnold’s new films attempt to transpose some of the

McDonagh throws everything in the mix — resulting in a film with all the form and finesse of a Mississippi mud pie 107

successful traits of their previous works into an American landscape and the results are, it must be said, mixed. McDonagh’s effort, War on Everyone, which he has written and directed, is a highenergy, wise-cracking comedy starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña as policemen buddies in New Mexico whose morals are as loose as their suits are sharp. When they get wind of a high-stakes robbery that’s about to take place, they decide that, rather than bring the plotters to justice, they’re going to try to get their cut. American Honey, which Arnold also directed and wrote, follows Star (Sasha Lane), a young girl in Texas who runs into a rag-tag bunch of misfit teenagers fronted by Shia LaBeouf (sporting an attractive rat’s tail and looking very much like early Dexys-era Kevin Rowland). These Lost Boys and Girls are travelling the country in a minibus selling magazine subscriptions to the Great American Public, and Star decides to cut her minimal losses and get on board. War on Everyone is a skip-along crime caper with badinage aplenty, even if the jokes often fall with a bit of a thud. American Honey is a beautifully slow, sun-drenched

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paean to the lost youth of lost youths. Where both films have problems, however, is their sense of scale. War on Everyone is a Seventies cop TV show/movie homage, but rather than trusting his knack for zingy dialogue and observing human idiosyncrasies, McDonagh throws everything he can think of in the mix — tracksuited Irish felons, transvestite strip club owners, even burka-clad tennis players — resulting in a film with all the form and finesse of a Mississippi mud pie. It’s hard not to conclude that the pressures of making a film with wider, ie, American, commercial appeal caused the whole project to bloat. Arnold tries to take on the topic of the US more directly with her road movie that’s also a handy tour of the different societal strata — rich, poor, but all unsatisfied — that the country has to offer. Her characters come out with statements as bald as, “I feel like I’m fucking America!” (ambiguity no doubt intended), and make references to “40 acres and a mule”, the promise given to freed slaves that was subsequently reneged upon. For a film-maker whose work is so delicate and nuanced — Arnold loves the metaphorical possibilities of a lingering shot on a fly or a moth buzzing on a pane of glass — the references feel clumsy and say little about the US of A that hasn’t been explored before: you mean the American Dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? (It’s also about 45 minutes too long, which the loss of a few of those fly-meets-window shots might rectify.) For both of these eminently talented writer-directors, this trip across the Atlantic and out of their comfort zones will hopefully expand their audiences and increase their future budgets. They certainly deserve it. But on behalf of British and Irish audiences, you hope that they booked a return ticket. — War on Everyone is out now; American Honey is out on 14 October

Plane for all to see: Mahwish Chishty combines silhouettes of military drones with decorative Pakistani folk art patterns to create her not-so-subtle spy plane models

Ceci n’est pas un drone A NEW ART EXHIBITION AT THE IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM MAKES SPY PLANES THAT ARE GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT If there’s one thing a combat drone needs to be, it’s discreet. So, it’s fair to say an exhibition of works by Pakistan-born artist Mahwish Chishty at the Imperial War Museum in London takes some pretty essential liberties. For her “Drone Series”, Chishty makes paintings and wooden sculptures of unmanned aerial vehicles, which she then daubs with vibrant colours. Not only does

their new livery render the drones functionally useless, it also points to the way in which they have become such a fixture in Pakistan’s landscape that they’ve been woven into the fabric of the country’s culture. Whether those below like it or not. — IWM Contemporary: Mahwish Chishty runs at the Imperial War Museum, London SE1 from 19 October to 19 March 2017

Dead air Documentary Kate Plays Christine couldn’t have a more sensationalist subject. On 15 July 1974, 29-year-old Christine Chubbuck, a news reporter for Channel 40 in Sarasota, Florida, sat down in front of the camera and read the morning’s headlines in a live broadcast. When the newsreel that was meant to follow wouldn’t run, Chubbuck reached into her handbag, pulled out a revolver, and shot herself in the head. However,

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this feature-length documentary from Robert Greene could not take a more low-key approach. Ostensibly, it’s a behind-thescenes look at the making of a dramatic film that recreates Chubbuck’s last days and final violent act and we are watching an actress, Kate Lyn Sheil, prepare for the role. There are wigs to be fitted, tans to be sprayed, handguns to be bought. The film, though, does not

really exist (though there is a biopic starring Rebecca Hall due next year); rather it is part of a “meta” investigation into Chubbuck’s motives, Sheil’s motives and indeed, our own as viewers. It’s intensely thought-provoking, deeply unsettling and very much worthy of your attention right to the final frame. — Kate Plays Christine is out on 14 October

Getty | Reaper: copyright Mahwish Chishty

A NEWSCASTER’S GRUESOME SUICIDE MAKES FOR A SURPRISINGLY SUBTLE DOCUMENTARY

Culture

Rocket man: former Nasa astronaut Mike Massimino puts you in the space suit as he recounts his experiences on Earth and beyond in Spaceman

Hello space guy! IN HIS NEW MEMOIR, ASTRONAUT MIKE MASSIMINO DOES HIS BEST TO SEEM DOWN TO EARTH. FOOLS NO ONE

“It’s possible that Radiohead’s OK Computer was recorded specifically to be listened to in space, and that everyone who’s heard it on Earth is missing the full experience,” writes Mike Massimino, in his autobiography, Spaceman. Massimino knows this because he’s listened to OK Computer. In space. Unlike the vast majority of us — including Radiohead — he’s had the full experience. But don’t worry; he’s going to explain it to you as best he can. Because Mike Massimino is just your average guy from Queens, New York, who happens to have had a few experiences he’d like to share. Just your average guy with two master’s degrees and a PhD from MIT, who trained his fricking retinas through sheer force of will so that he could pass his eye exam and get into Nasa, who rose up above all the other brilliant wannabe astronauts and got himself put on a shuttle to go on a spacewalk 350 miles above the ground and fix the Hubble telescope and help mankind’s continued effort to understand the secrets of the universe. Twice. Spaceman is a straight-talking, completely

absorbing account of how Massimino managed to achieve all this, told with a “who, me?” incredulity that is as endearing as it is utterly unconvincing. But if you want to imagine that you, too, an ordinary Joe, are strapped to your seat in a shuttle that’s about to blast through the atmosphere, or are looking through the helmet of your spacesuit

at the multicoloured brilliance of pure starlight, or are noticing the impossible blue of Planet Earth while listening to late Nineties art rock, then Mike’s your guy, and this is your book. — Spaceman by Mike Massimino is out now (Simon & Schuster)

Oasis of calm Oasis words by Nick Pope | Nasa

A CANDID NEW DOC ABOUT THE 1996 KNEBWORTH GIGS GIVES GLIMPSES OF THE GALLAGHER BROTHERS IN A RARE STATE — GETTING ON It took the Gallagher brothers just four years to really make and break Oasis. From 1993 to 1996, they signed a record deal, released two decade-defining albums, habitually disbanded in drugfuelled acrimony, and performed to over 250,000 people at Knebworth in the most sought-after set of gigs in British history. The personal and professional cloudburst that followed threatens to become their legacy, but those shows marked a pop culture zenith that no

musical act has matched since. Twenty years later, Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees’s (Amy, Senna) access-allareas documentary Supersonic charts the bumpy road that led to those two momentous nights at Knebworth. With the help of unearthed behind-the-scenes footage and revealing commentary from the band, Supersonic manages to fully encapsulate the chaos that came with being the biggest rock stars on the planet. Of course, Noel and Liam’s sibling

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rivalry takes centre-stage once again. But while their constant fall-outs are a much too trodden subject, a focus on what unites the pair makes Supersonic the most affecting insight into their relationship yet. A mutual hatred for their physically abusive father, as well as candid moments of heart-warming brotherly affection, lifts their familiar story away from the tabloids and far closer to tragedy. — Supersonic is out now

Promotion / Dorco

Quick on the draw Why Dorco’s Pace 6 Plus razor is what you need to get smart this season Ï It’s easy to let your skincare regime fall by the wayside at this time of year. In fact, after all the sculpting, tanning and moisturising of summer it can feel like a relief. But cold air, wind and rain can wreak havoc with your skin, so it’s more important than ever to get the basics right. And with beards officially out for Autumn/Winter 2016, that means getting the closest and smoothest shave possible, which is where Dorco comes in. Now it’s your turn to discover what style-savvy men across the Pond have known for some time: Dorco doesn’t just produce exemplary shaving kits, the South Korean brand offers an impeccable service, too. Sign up to Dorco’s monthly shaving subscription and alongside the complimentary, custom-made, non-slip handle that’s supplied with your first order, you’ll receive four Pace 6 Plus razor heads, the best and most effective razor Dorco produces. Sounds good, right? But that’s not even the best bit. Costing less than six pounds per month, the four new razors delivered to your door every four weeks will ensure the cleanest of shaves every day while keeping facial skin fresh and supple.

Exclusive reader offer Ï The Super Six subscription package is £5.95 per month and includes delivery of four Pace 6 Plus razor heads every four weeks, plus a free Pace 6 Plus handle with first delivery. Try the razor yourself with our exclusive Esquire discount. Simply enter ESQDO44 at check-out for 10 per cent off your first month at razorsbydorco.co.uk

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The handle Ergonomic, non-slip and sleekly designed, Dorco’s Pace 6 Plus handle is as stylish to look at as it is efficient to use. Better yet, it fits any Dorco razor head, should you want to adapt your subscription (from £3.90 a month).

The blades Six ultra-sharp blades provide an unbeatably close shave, while the lubrication strip — loaded with aloe vera, vitamin E and lavender oil — soothes and protects the skin. Use the extra-wide trimming blade on the back of the head to neaten everything up. Sorted!

Photographs by Mark Sanders

Culture

Thetan mess: in his new feature-length doc, Louis Theroux tries, not entirely successfully, to crack Scientology

Faith some more LOUIS THEROUX’S NEW SCIENTOLOGY DOCUMENTARY IS THE ACME OF THE REPORTER’S QUEST TO MEET — AND HOPEFULLY NOT BE SET UPON BY — BELIEVERS OF ALL KINDS With even the most cursory of glances at his back catalogue of playfully inquisitive investigations into cultish subcultures and outlandish ideologies, it’s clear that Britain’s best-loved documentary-maker Louis Theroux was always destined to make his latest film, My Scientology Movie. Here, we recap five of his films that paved the way.

Louis Theroux words by Charlie Teasdale

1. Weird Weekends: Born Again Christians, 1998 Recently Theroux has enacted a more sombre tone to discuss major issues of modern society (alcohol addiction, mental illness, sex offenders etc), but in his earlier TV work he scrutinised kooky fringe groups, social exiles and a few genuine crackpots. His gently bumbling, almost-insouciant charm was reliably disarming, as evident in his inaugural BBC outing. In a quote: “Well, I hadn’t been delivered after all, which meant I might be facing eternity in a place called ‘Hell’. But then again, at least I could still smoke pot and go to gay bars.”

2. Weird Weekends: India, 2000 In India, Louis goes in search of enlightenment, and meets various gurus, mystics and followers of both. He’s vocally sceptical throughout, but then has a hug with Mata “Amma” Amritanandamayi,

one of the most beloved spiritual leaders in India. After the embrace he staggers woozily through the crowd, visibly shaken and unnerved. In a quote: “I don’t know if it was the incense or the music, or maybe the crush of the crowd, but something very odd happened. For the first time in my whole trip, I felt like something had touched me in a way I couldn’t explain.”

3. Louis and the Nazis, 2003 It’s not often that Louis is ruffled, but during his meeting with a gang of Californian neo-Nazis he’s asked by an already riled redneck if he is Jewish. Theroux refuses to answer either way, which only makes the man angrier. There’s a look of genuine terror on Louis’ face, and you realise the only thing standing between him and a beating (or worse) is the camera. In a quote: “If I told you I was Jewish would that create a problem between us?”

4. The Most Hated Family in America, 2007 The Westboro Baptist Church (famous for brandishing signs including “God Hates Fags”) welcomed Louis along for a few weeks of funeral picketing. Beyond the astonishing audacity of the family — and it really is bonkers — the grist of the film is the story of the children who are trapped in a life they didn’t choose and can’t be sure if they even believe in.

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In a quote: [To someone waving a sign that says “Fags Eat Poop”] “Is that in the Bible?”

5. The Ultra Zionists, 2011 On the West Bank, Louis meets with Jewish occupiers who believe the land was promised to them by God. As is often the case, Louis spends much of the film looking perplexed and ponders the apparent, almost ritualistic futility of the Middle East conflict, but as a film it does a good job of bringing the toll of the violent drudgery to the fore. In a quote: “This is strange, it feels like a game.”

6. My Scientology Movie, 2016 After almost 20 years in the company of oddballs, you’d imagine Theroux was perfectly poised to tackle the Church of Scientology. And he is. But leader David Miscavige and co are as resistant to his methods as they have been to every other curious mind who’s come knocking. That is to say, Louis doesn’t speak to any current Scientologists. Instead, he directs a series of reenactments that illustrate the odd practices within the church. We see him hit a wall and improvise, but it makes for good, and at times, chilling cinema. In a quote: “We can’t get Miscavige, but we can create our own Miscavige.” — My Scientology Movie is out now

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

SIGNAGE OF THE TIMES To celebrate Esquire’s 25th anniversary, advertisers from our launch year get a look in the mirror, right back to 1991

Ï It’s not just a magazine’s covers that evolve over time. The articles and interviews inside reflect an ever-changing world, fashions reflect each new season, celebrities shine brightly — some fleetingly, some timelessly. And then there are the advertisements. Ads are calls to action, designed to tug at heartstrings (and, of course, purse strings)

and, to do that, they have to reflect what really matters to you, our readers. They are signifiers of the mood, culture and desires of the times. Over the following 14 pages, we salute some of the brands who have worked with us throughout our 25-year history and present a selection of some of our favourite advertisers from our first year.

PATEK PHILIPPE

ARAMIS

TAG HEUER

DAVIDOFF

P116 Watchmaking excellence to transcend generations

P118 A scent with timeless appeal

P120 Timepieces that stand up to the toughest challenges

P122 Ocean freshness for the modern man

BULGARI

JACK DANIEL’S

JOHN SMEDLEY

P124 Fine Italian craftsmanship that needs no introduction

P126 Telling tales of whiskey, without the hard sell

P128 British heritage knitwear, timeless and innovative

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Ï

Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

Generations of excellence Unquestionable luxury, unmatched craftsmanship: Patek Philippe

Patek Philippe: the past quartercentury 1991 At Sotheby’s in New York, a 1920 Patek pocket watch sells for $600,000, then the highest price paid for a watch of any kind in an American auction house.

1996 The “Generations” campaign is launched, and first features the new Annual Calendar watch, on which the date only needs changing once a year, on 1 March.

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2006 1996 Ï

2001 In Geneva, the Patek Philippe Museum opens. It’s one of the great watch collections and also a library of more than 8,000 books and publications on the subjects of watches and time.

2014 Ten days before Christmas, the London Salon, at 16 Bond Street, reopens, almost five times larger after a nine-month renovation. It’s a fitting end to Patek Philippe’s 175th anniversary year.

2016 The iconic Nautilus range of sports watches, with an oval case inspired by a ship’s porthole, celebrates four decades in production.

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Ï The slogan in the Patek Philippe advertising campaigns — “You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation” — is more than just good copy. In 2009, Thierry Stern became the fourth generation of the Stern family to take charge of the prestigious Swiss watchmaker. Before the Sterns, who bought the firm in 1932, descendants of Antoni Patek and Adrien Philippe took leading turns. The “Generations” campaign is actually a reflection of the company’s DNA. Patek Philippe watches are the most coveted of all. The most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction is a Patek Philippe 5016A, which fetched CHF7.3m at

Phillips in Geneva in November 2015. A year earlier, the Henry Graves Supercomplication, a Patek pocket watch of 74mm diameter made in 1933, sold, after a 15-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s in Geneva, for CHF20.6m, making it the most expensive timepiece of any kind sold at auction — a mark that is yet to be surpassed. When you buy a Patek Philippe you are making a singular commitment to watch manufacture of the highest order. Whoever’s fortunate enough to follow you in the next generation will inherit timeless style and mechanical perfection. Before then, there’s time enough to enjoy wearing your Patek. Never has “merely looking after” something been so pleasurable.

Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

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Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

Classic and groundbreaking Instrumental in the birth and rise of men’s grooming, Aramis continues to inspire

Aramis: the story of a classic 1991 Aramis appears in the first edition of Esquire.

1994 The launch of Aramis Havana marks the brand’s 30th birthday in style.

2003 Andre Agassi became the face of Aramis with the launch of Aramis Life. One of the greatest tennis players of all-time, Agassi remains the only man to have won all four Grand Slams, Olympic gold and the ATP World Tour Finals.

2009 The Gentleman’s Collection — comprising eight former Aramis favourites brought back to life, including Aramis 900, New West for Him and Devin Country — returns to the shelves full-time after connecting with a whole new generation of men.

2014 Aramis turns 50, becoming one of only a handful of male fragrances to rack up half a century, with no let-up in its enduring appeal.

2016 The Aramis Classic range of fragrances and grooming products, as well as special editions including Aramis Voyager, are available in more than 130 countries.

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Ï When Aramis partnered with Esquire back in the autumn of 1991, it’s fair to say that it was the magazine that benefited most. For Esquire to signal its intention to become an essential part of male culture in the UK, it could not have chosen a better collaborator. At that point, Aramis had already enjoyed more than 25 years as an essential component of the lives of British men. The fragrance first appeared in 1964, and quickly established itself in the then small-but-growing men’s corners in department stores. In 1967, a range of Aramis products was launched, including the Invigorating Body Shampoo and 24 Hour Antiperspirant Spray that continue to be best sellers today. This was more than just a milestone in men’s grooming: as the first range of

its kind, it essentially laid the foundations for the entire male grooming industry. Few groundbreaking brands go on to enjoy a long and successful existence, but Aramis is one of them. A significant part of that success can be attributed to the timeless quality of the original Aramis Classic scent, with its warm, woody background and leafy, citrus top notes of bergamot and sage. This enduring appeal is also testament to the craftsmanship that first skilfully blended the fragrance. Timelessness is also reflected in the advertising campaigns: snapshots of classic masculinity that have outlasted hundreds of other trends. You could say that about the bottle, and its contents, too.

Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

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Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

A sporting evolution From Senna and McQueen to the faces of Tag Heuer’s new generation

Inspiring innovation: a Tag Heuer timeline 1991 The first “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” campaign launches, with its focus on sport; a year later, Tag Heuer becomes the official timekeeper of F1.

1997 After the all-new Carrera of 1996, and 12 months ahead of Monaco’s rebirth, the Kirium is launched — its case, bezel and bracelet are joined in a “liquid metal” concept.

2002 With its first digital-only watch for two decades, the F1 Mikrograph, Tag Heuer wins the watch industry’s highest design award.

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An incredible leap in watch technology: the Monaco V4 is the world’s first belt-driven watch; 10 years later the Monaco V4 Tourbillon appears.

2009 Steve McQueen races against Lewis Hamilton in The Duel, a film commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of the Monaco watch, using Le Mans footage.

2016 Premier League referees track matches with Connected watches and fourth officials have info boards shaped like a Carrera, as Tag Heuer becomes the league’s official timekeeper.

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Ï It’s not only a hashtag and a 25-year-gap that separates Tag Heuer’s two “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” campaigns. The company’s industry-leading innovation since the first campaign, which ran from 1991 to 1994, means that the new Carrera Calibre Heuer 01 — skeleton dial, modular steel-and-titanium construction — demonstrates unparalleled precision watchmaking technology in 2016. Today’s partnership with Red Bull Racing is important, too. It underpins Tag Heuer’s deep-rooted connection to sport, and to motor racing in particular. This link was forged in 1963 with the first-ever watch made for professional racing drivers, the Tag Heuer Carrera. (That’s a Carrera 2000 in the 1991 ad.)

Then came the launch of the Monaco watch, in 1969. Two years later, when Steve McQueen wore his Monaco in the film Le Mans, there was no more desirable watch on the planet. Between the iconic actor and Red Bull Racing, the two greatest drivers in F1 history, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, became Tag Heuer ambassadors. The Monaco was also a technological marvel, the first square chronograph to be water-resistant, and in 2015, the launch of Tag Heuer Connected rebooted the idea of what a touchscreen smartwatch could be. Not cracking under pressure to innovate, and remaining at watchmaking’s cutting edge, continues to be a cornerstone of the brand’s success.

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Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

Timeless freshness Why Cool Water continues to make a splash in modern masculinity

Cool Water: endurance of an icon 1991 Just three years after launch, Cool Water is already one of the world’s best-selling fragrances for men, a position it continues to hold in 2016.

1994 Zino Davidoff, dies in Switzerland, aged 87. His lifelong passion for excellence and luxury — from fragrance to cognac, leather goods and more — is the cornerstone of an enduring global brand.

2006

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In a year of much media debate about celebrity fragrances, Cool Water’s sales almost double that of 2005’s best-selling celebrity scent (Sean Combs’s Sean John Unforgivable). Further proof of Cool Water as a truly iconic fragrance.

2013 Cool Water celebrates its 25th birthday.

2016 As part of the “Love The Ocean” initiative, Cool Water ambassador Scott Eastwood helps with a July beach clean-up in San Diego, the first of several planned around the world. The first UK beach clean takes place in August, at Bigbury-onSea in Devon.

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Ï Cool Water might be the best-named fragrance ever. Those two words instantly conjure ocean freshness before you’ve even taken the lid off the bottle. And when you do, the fragrance itself is more stimulating again, lifting your senses immediately. There’s a reason why it has remained unchanged for almost 30 years. The only major change to Cool Water since its debut in 1988, (when Esquire was barely a glint in a publisher’s eye) is a revamped Davidoff logo. Everything else is the same: the bottle, in ocean blue; the top notes of peppermint and coriander; the sandalwood and jasmine at the fragrance’s heart; the warm, musky base. It’s hardly surprising, then, that the branding of Cool Water has stayed constant. Scott Eastwood, son

of Clint, is in the latest campaign (following on from stars including Josh Holloway and Paul Walker), which shares much of its visual motifs from previous campaigns. Masculinity, the magnetism of the ocean and the unchanging, iconic Cool Water bottle: why mess with a winning formula? Since 2012, Cool Water’s “Love The Ocean” initiative has supported National Geographic’s Pristine Seas expeditions, which explore and document marine environments across the globe, with the goal of protecting 10 per cent of the world’s ocean by 2020. Cool Water’s spiritual and sensual link with the ocean is now complemented by a physical commitment to help preserve it.

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Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

From dreams to genius The Bulgari story: striking the right balance between embracing change and retaining heritage

Bulgari: a history of brief time 1991 Bulgari marks a decade of its purpose-built watch facility in Switzerland; in the 100 years prior, watches were made in Italy.

1998 The striking, sporty Aluminium watch is launched, with a strap made of said metal and black rubber, and a black rubber bezel.

2004 In yellow or white gold, the Bulgari-Bulgari Grand Complication, an in-house first, has a transparent case-back for viewing the tourbillon.

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The Octo watch launches, fittingly, in Rome, where the circle and octagon central to the case design are mainstays of the ancient architecture.

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2014 Two records broken by the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon: world’s thinnest tourbillon (1.95mm) and tourbillon watch (5mm).

2016 At Baselworld, the watch industry’s Cannes/ Comic Con, Bulgari reveals the Octo Finissimo, at 6.85mm the slimmest-ever minute repeater.

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Ï The campaign was called Bulgari Dream. No captions, no models, just something beautiful made by Bulgari, a cloudy sky and a sloping foreground with subtly embossed company logos. When these ads first appeared, in the Eighties, they were untypical of that glossy, padded decade — which is perhaps what made them stand out. (The artificial construction of space, which seems very Eighties today, was in fact inspired by the work of the surrealist artist René Magritte, he of the bowler hats and this-is-not-a-pipe pipe.) The idea was so successful that it continued into the next decade, and the 1991 incarnation appeared in Esquire’s debut issue, forging a relationship that would

continue for the next quarter-century. That particular ad was for a Bulgari-Bulgari, named for the two engravings of the logo on the bezel, a design inspired by Roman coins with their inscriptions extolling the power of the emperors they depicted. Rome, where Bulgari is headquartered, also informs the watch in the current campaign, Italian Genius: the octagon and the circle on the face of the Octo Ultranero are common motifs of classical Roman architecture. And there’s also an indicator of historical significance, and the passage of time, in that immediately recognisable, old-style U of the Bulgari logo, which as horological style and technology evolves, remains constant.

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Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

Sometimes it’s good to be square The Jack Daniel’s bottle and its contents are authentic modern icons

Jack Daniel’s: history in a square bottle 1991 Esquire is born, in central London. About 4,000 miles away, in Lynchburg, Tennessee, home of the Jack Daniel Distillery, glasses are raised to mark Jack Daniel’s 125th birthday.

1997 The first appearance of Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel launches: the company’s second new whiskey (after the twice-charcoal-mellowed Gentleman Jack in 1988) to launch in a century.

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2008 Jeff Arnett becomes Jack Daniel’s seventh master distiller. Only five master distillers separate Jeff from Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel himself.

2011 Jack Daniel’s introduces its first flavoured expression — Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey — attracting a whole new generation of Jack drinkers. Four years later, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire is introduced.

2016 Celebrations for Jack Daniel’s 150th anniversary include a worldwide Barrel Hunt sparked by clues on Facebook, and a limitededition whiskey from barrels “slow-toasted” in one of the Distillery’s sunniest spots.

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Ï Jack Daniel’s whiskey isn’t advertised in the usual way. Instead, stories are told in the style of postcards from Lynchburg, Tennessee, based on an advertising charter that dates back to the Fifties. They are stories of the people who make it, the ingredients and skills they use, and the place where the whiskey comes from. It’s a winning strategy of telling, not selling, that resonates deeply within the brand. Jack Daniel’s is able to boast a commitment to integrity and authenticity few others can emulate — every word of every story in every ad is true, featuring real people from the distillery. There have been celebrity endorsements, but only of the unpaid, heartfelt thumbs-up kind, from passionate

fans. In 1955, Frank Sinatra took a bottle on stage with him and told his audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Daniel’s and it’s the nectar of the gods.” By the end of the next year, sales had doubled. Very little beyond the typeface has changed in the adverts over the past 100-plus years. Like the label, they’re all black and white. But, as the 1991 ad above shows, Jack himself always said that what went into the bottle was more important than what went on it. Today, as the year-long celebrations of the whiskey’s 150th anniversary draw to a close, Jack Daniel’s is still made the way Mr Jack made it: charcoal mellowed drop by drop for exceptional smoothness. Cheers to that.

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Esquire / 25th Anniversary Special

A true British classic How John Smedley combines centuries of heritage with modern style

John Smedley: stylish British excellence endures 1991 Awarded the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement. Today, almost two thirds of production is exported to more than 30 countries on five continents. Japan is the biggest market; John Smedley has been available there since 1912.

1993 New machinery at Lea Mills allows the craftsmen and women to incorporate innovative design and patterns into the production process of merino, cashmere and sea island cotton knitwear.

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2000 No longer just the best reason to visit the great menswear shops and department stores: John Smedley opens its first independent London retail space on Brook Street in Mayfair.

2012 In June, at the inaugural London Collections: Men, John Smedley shows its spring/summer 2012 collection to great acclaim.

2016 A new London flagship store opens on Jermyn Street, with maple flooring matching the original Lea Mills factory floor and the Wall of Colour: iconic knitwear in every shade of the season.

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Ï Celebrating the passage of 25 years is commonplace at John Smedley. The Derbyshire firm has been a leader in its field since 1784, crafting timeless knitwear at what is now considered the oldest manufacturing factory in the world, Lea Mills. It is impossible to survive in business, especially the business of fashion, for so long without embracing innovation. John Smedley has consistently introduced new techniques to its production process: from some of the first full knitting machines in the Victorian era, to 3D design today. By maintaining its heritage along with this contemporary input, a great British brand has been able to thrive for more than 230 years. There have been many links to other British icons. In fashion, collaborations with Paul Smith and Vivienne Westwood. In film, most recently, Daniel Craig wore

a black Bobby V-neck pullover as James Bond, in Spectre. In Dr No, Sean Connery’s Bond spends much of his time in Jamaica in polo shirts, which experts have identified as coming from Lea Mills. Fast-forward to John Smedley’s pre-fall 2016 collection, and you’ll see a perfect example of how the brand combines classic quality with contemporary touches: flashes of neon colour inspired by British Brutalist building interiors (and also a nod to next year’s spring/summer collection); a slim, tailored fit for jumpers. The latter, to give credit where it’s due, is a John Smedley touchstone, and just one reason why it is rightly known for making the world’s finest knitwear. 55 Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6LX; 24 Brook Street, W1K 5DG; Lea Mills, Lea Bridge, Matlock, DE4 5AG; For more information visit johnsmedley.com

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As proud, puff-chested Brits, we like to think that we shape our own lives, decide our own fates, plot our own destinies. But, of course, that is not entirely true. There are others among us — bolder (occasionally), brighter (sometimes), brasher (often) — who have defined our experiences, for better or worse. They have led us, entertained us, dressed us, shocked us, fed us, inspired us, embarrassed us, sold to us, cured us. For our 25th anniversary issue, Esquire’s editors have compiled a list of the British men we feel have defined the past quarter-century for other British men — all of us — for better or worse. We’ve narrowed our focus to those who have made their mark since 1991, hence no 25

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Paul Smith, Paul Weller, Paul Gascoigne... all the Pauls. We’ve also included only those who are alive today, with one impossible-to-ignore exception. These men may not all be famous — and certainly, they may not all be liked — but their impact on our lives is undeniable. What would the world think of us without Tony Blair? What would contemporary art look like without Damien Hirst? How much more relaxed about our hair would we feel without David Beckham? What would anything in the 21st century be like without Tim Berners-Lee? Of course, the answers are endlessly debatable, and we hope the pages that follow will prompt discussion rather than end it. Who deserves to be on this list and isn’t? Who doesn’t and is? Have we come far, or come full circle? We’ll propose. You decide.

BR I T-A RT I S T

Damien Hirst BY WILL SELF

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Damien Hirst photographed by Paul Massey, 1992

The Damien Hirst of the Naughty Nineties was a wild man, the cynosure of a farouche group of partying artists

love Damien Hirst — no, really, I do. There are few contemporary British creative types — whether artists, impresarios or performers — who we couldn’t do without; this does not apply to Hirst. No Damien, and there’d be a large, Damien-shaped hole left in our culture. I’d’ve liked to link this image neatly to Hirst’s own work, but unfortunately what it summons up more are the strange “inverted” sculptures that his colleague Rachel Whiteread produces by, for example, making a room into a giant mould, and then casting its space. If you were to make a cast out of this Hirstshaped hole what might it look like? Well, probably not much like the Damien I know (slightly). The Hirst of the popular imagination is a cachinnating monster, deranged by alcohol and drugs, who throttles sharks and livestock indiscriminately with his bare hands, but then stands idly by while his multiple assistants undertake the hard graft of chainsawing these animals’ corpses into arty chunks and preserving them in formaldehyde. No. It’s true, back in the day Hirst was something of a party animal; but then, weren’t we all? I seem to remember he liked, when inebriated, to get his penis out. But I don’t think this was the natural extension of his exhibitionism, rather, he’s always struck me as an essentially shy person whose bravura performances hide his insecurities. I never remember the penis being erect. It’s difficult now to appreciate quite what a splash the so-called Young British Artists made in the late Eighties and early Nineties — they were to the somewhat becalmed art scene of the time what punk rock had been to prog rock in the Seventies: a new and savage broom that swept all before it. And holding the broom’s handle was Hirst: he’d been at Goldsmiths art college when, in 1988, he curated a show called Freeze in London’s then largely disused Docklands

which featured the work of his peers. His own first audacious animal piece, “A Thousand Years”, followed a couple of years later. It was comprised of a glass vitrine, a rotting cow’s head, and a lot of flies and maggots. When I first saw this I thought it was a heartbreaking work of staggering genius — and I still feel the same way. As I say, the Hirst of the Naughty Nineties was indeed a wild man, and the cynosure of a farouche group of partying artists. Yet even then it was apparent Hirst was shrewder and steelier than the rest of them — a businessman and entrepreneur, quite as much as a spendthrift; a collector and an impresario quite as much as a creative artist. Hirst’s tutelary spirit was, of course, Andy Warhol but whereas Warhol followed Marcel Duchamp in making art out of ordinary objects in factory conditions, Hirst not only viewed his artworks as commodities, he viewed the money these commodities were sold for as itself a work of art; or, at any rate, as a sort of art material that could then be moulded into further artworks, which in turn could be commoditised… and so on… and so forth, round and round, for 1,000 years — or until the overblown bear market in contemporary art finally collapses. Hirst effectively shorted the market himself by holding a massive Sotheby’s fire-sale of his works just before the financial crash of 2007–’08 took hold; but even before that he’d managed to pull off some astonishing financial arabesques, including his outrageous “For the Love of God”, a diamond and platinum skull, valued in tens of millions, which, it was rumoured, he’d secretly “bought” from himself, to inflate its market value. I agree the diamond skull and quite a few of the other works, together with all the financial jiggery-pokery and the giant folly of a country house he’s bought in Gloucestershire and stuffed full of his personal collection, should probably be entered on the debit side of Hirst’s bought

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ledger account: none of it’s that clever, really, and it certainly isn’t funny. The skull and others of his works have also been the subject of accusations of plagiarism, and that ain’t clever, either. However, there’s a great deal more, still, on the profit side of his account: some truly original and effective artworks, a fantastic art publishing imprint, Other Criteria, and a superb new gallery complex in south London,a sort of gift to the public. The Hirst I hear about is a warm, sympathetic man, a decent employer, and when I’ve had the opportunity to talk to him quietly, a serious and deeply thoughtful one. Hirst, inevitably downbeat and unassuming in public nowadays, has the charisma that conceals charisma, but he also has another quality, one which my mother dubbed “built-in orphan power”. The child of a broken home, growing up in working-class Leeds in the Seventies, it’s frankly astonishing — and enduringly admirable — the way he stormed the heights of the art establishment. I expect he was deeply wounded by the utter contempt with which his show of “easel paintings” at The Wallace Collection was received by the critics (and the public) a few years ago. It made me think back to the launch for one of his glossy art books in the Nineties. It was held at the then modish and refurbed Quo Vadis restaurant in Soho, and tout-the-art-monde was there. But, as I recall it, Damien was looking rather lost and vulnerable amid the braying aesthetes, bombinating bohemians and shake-your-money-maker types. Feeling the full force of his built-in orphan power, I couldn’t forbear from picking the artist up bodily, cradling him in my arms and walking around the party for a while, cooing, “Nice Damien, sweet Damien, who’s a good Damien.” It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but I fear he’s never really forgiven me. And perhaps that’s why, gentle reader, I still love him so fervently.

Artrageous! Five infamous moments in British Art

Camera Press

Twenty-five years of creative majesty and meltdowns

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1999

2001

2008

2015

Marcus Harvey’s acrylic of Myra Hindley, and Chris Ofili’s elephant dung depiction of the Virgin Mary feature at Charles Saatchi’s “Sensation” exhibition

Two Chinese artists jump on Tracey Emin’s “My Bed” at the Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Gallery and pillow-fight to the crowd’s confused applause

Martin Creed wins the Turner Prize for “Work N. 227”: simply an empty room at the Tate, with the lights going on and off every five minutes

The Chapmans organise Nazi figurines in swastika formation at the White Cube art gallery for “If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be”

Banksy paints Apple’s Steve Jobs in “The Jungle” camp in Calais, nodding to his Syrian roots. Migrants reportedly soon start charging for views

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Tim Berners-Lee, the man whose vision of how the world could communicate has had the biggest influence on us in the past 25 years, photographed in 1996

W W W.WOR L D - CH A NGE R .CO.U K

Tim Berners-Lee BY SANJIV BHATTACHARYA

o other living person has shaped our lives more than Tim Berners-Lee. Even when Steve Jobs was alive. The personal computer had many architects. And the internet, too, was the work of dozens of scientists at the US Department of Defence going back to the Fifties. But the World Wide Web had just one creator, and he built it for neither profit nor power. The platform on which Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have built empires was given freely to the world by an Englishman from south-west London, a modest genius who has fought to keep it free and open ever since. It’s a measure of Berners-Lee’s influence that the web and the

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15 INTERNET PHENOMENA TIM BERNERS-LEE WOULD N O T H AV E F O R E S E E N

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internet are often regarded as synonymous. But they’re not. Strictly speaking, the internet is the network through which computers transfer information; the World Wide Web is one of the ways in which that information is accessed and the main one we use (email and instant messaging are among the others). When we say the internet has transformed our communication, media, science, community, commerce, politics, identity — our everything — we really mean the web. Because before Berners-Lee, the internet was largely irrelevant, little more than a raggedy quilt of networks in which engineers pinged information to each other. In the Seventies, Arthur C Clarke envisaged a world in which

Nineties: Dancing Baby 1998: Nigerian Prince emails 1999: goatse.cx

2004: Hot or Not 2005: Happy Slapping 2006: WikiLeaks

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2007: Rickrolling 2007: Two Girls, One Cup 2008: Justin Bieber

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regular people would communicate through personal computers, but until Berners-Lee, no one had done anything about it. In 1989, he was an Oxford-graduate physicist working at CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland, where the world’s finest minds smash particles into each other in giant accelerators in an effort to decode the essential building blocks of the universe. Berners-Lee managed the computer systems, and he was frustrated. All these scientists had different computers that ran on incompatible programs so their data couldn’t easily be shared or linked. So, in what he describes as “an act of desperation”, he came up with the building blocks of our online universe instead — the common language of HTML, the shared information transfer protocol of HTTP and the URL conventions we know today. The Berners-Lee story is internet legend by now. And a few lessons ring loud and clear. First: innovation happens on the fringes, not the centre. CERN wasn’t interested in a new network or transfer protocol; its main mission is searching for the “God” particle and such like. But Berners-Lee had a boss who gave him room to play, to indulge in a side project and, as he has said, “kick the tyres of this new computer we had…” Let creative people tinker and they might just change the world. Lesson two: true genius is visionary, not technical. Berners-Lee isn’t fêted for creating HTML, but for the imaginative leap that came with it. He asked: what if the internet could host a vast library of documents that people the world over could access and add to? Hypertext had already been invented. The internet had been around for decades in one form or another. But it took Berners-Lee to put them together in the service of a grander idea. What distinguishes the web among so many technological break-

2011: Nope, Chuck Testa! 2012: Gangnam Style 2013: Hotdogs or legs

2014: Jihadi John 2015: The Dress 2016: Sad Ben Affleck

At the 1991 Hypertext conference in Texas, his paper proposing the web was rejected. He went anyway and set up a demo for delegates. Incredibly, they were unimpressed

throughs is it had a moral purpose from day one. While the CERN scientists focused on the smallest particles in the universe, Berners-Lee was thinking big — about making a better world. The revolution he created was no accident — the web was designed to make information free, to accelerate and democratise knowledge and solve humanity’s problems. The web was such a powerful idea that, of course, it didn’t take off at once. Lesson three: even genius needs a sales pitch. Berners-Lee could have just surrendered his invention to the market of ideas, let others champion it if they wanted. But instead, he fought for it — he has always fought for it — often in the face of opposition and indifference. He knew that the web, like any network, would only impress if it was big, so he went out and exhorted his peers to participate. At the 1991 Hypertext conference in San Antonio, Texas, his paper proposing the web was rejected, but he went anyway, and set up a demo at the venue for passing delegates. Incredibly, they were unimpressed. Objectors, Berners-Lee told the Guardian in 2014, were “people with private agendas, or incumbents who have existing systems that aren’t compatible. But I learned — don’t try to bring them on board. It’s a waste of time. There’s enough people out there who are excited, so work with them.” And lesson four: keep it free. In the early days, a competing system called Gopher, run by the University of Minnesota, was actually bigger than the World Wide Web. But then

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the administrators suggested that maybe, just possibly, they would consider a tiny royalty fee for using the network. And just like that, Gopher’s numbers crashed. Berners-Lee, however, made no such demand. He was philosophically opposed. He’d built his web on the principled conviction that great things are possible when free people can connect and communicate without barriers. It’s so ubiquitous today, it’s easy to forget that the web is also the expression of one man’s values, the optimism and altruism of Berners-Lee himself. One wonders how our digital revolution might look had a more mercenary figure been in his place. Today, 40 per cent of the world is connected to the web and the numbers keep rising. And while a darkness has entered our online lives — as governments surveil and censor, and corporations push for fast lanes and slow — the man who first opened the door to it all continues to set a luminous example. In 1994, Berners-Lee launched the Worldwide Web Consortium and he has fought ever since to keep the web free and open — his optimism was never naïve. And in the midst of all the hungry capitalism and empire building of the internet, his own selflessness is an important reminder of what the web is really about. It’s not theirs, it’s ours. “I believe the web is under threat,” Berners-Lee once wrote, “but the future [of the web] depends on ordinary people taking responsibility for this extraordinary resource.” We should listen to him.

FOR M ER LY NA K ED CH EF

Jamie Oliver INTERVIEW BY BEN MITCHELL

Jamie Oliver photographed by Liam Duke, west London, July 1999

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A good hangover cure? Other than water, and maybe a Berocca, a teaspoon of cumin sorts you out

THE NEW TIM HENMAN

Andy Murray

T H E N E W D AV I D AT TENBOROUGH

think I’m generally liked but people who don’t like me can’t fucking stand me. Do I care? Not in the slightest. I’m fairly consistent, so even the ones who don’t like me probably understand I’ve got some half-decent values. Sometimes, being enthusiastic and positive pisses people off.

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“Bollocks” is a good word because you can use it freely in America.

Most of my inspirations have been women. Women are often unpretentious and they’re more reflective of what’s available, what’s near, what’s in season and, “I don’t give a fuck if that’s the way to chop something. I think this is better so fuck you.” I like that. I don’t like watching myself on TV so I tend not to. It just gets on my tits. It’s not nice hearing your own voice, is it?

A “glug” of olive oil is, I would say, about a tablespoon.

There are glass-half-full and glass-halfempty people. I know who I want to hang around with. Glass-half-empty people fucking suck the life out of you.

If you Google Image me, the last 20 years does not look good. It’s just the most erratic, nuts selection of haircuts. Me and Marco Pierre White don’t get on, which is kind of a shame. He was a huge influence when I was a teenager but he can’t stand me and I’m not that keen on him, if I’m honest. I wouldn’t mind making amends — and we probably will one day — but maybe not. A good hangover cure? Other than water — and maybe a Berocca — a heaped teaspoon of cumin sorts you out. It’s quite hard to swallow but that works. About four years ago, I felt sad for the first time. I’m generally a very optimistic person but I knew I was just pretending to be happy and I wasn’t quite sure why. I don’t worry, which is a problem because I wasn’t conscious of the complicated world I’d created for myself. At the core of it all was sleep. I was getting, like, three-and-a-half hours sleep a night. I got on a journey to fixing it quickly.

Chris Packham A kids’ TV host with silly hair and a twitching passion becomes the beacon of British springtime. Will he be on-air from the Galápagos in his nineties? Don’t bet against it.

THE NEW R O D S T E WA R T

Robbie Williams THE NEW ALAN BENNETT

Jarvis Cocker

If you don’t do anything then nothing happens, so get amongst it. I reckon I fuck up about 30 per cent of everything I do. You only prosper through having a go and not being afraid of taking knocks.

It’s not that cool or common for a chef to be a complete arsehole in the kitchen now. That’s a good thing. Also, we’re all struggling for staff so you can’t treat people like that and get away with it.

Time Out / Camera Press

Bad manners really annoy me. Not getting up if an old person or a pregnant woman needs a seat on the bus… I see red. People just barging about drives me up the wall as well.

Though both have lent their names to the same landmass at Wimbledon, it’s agreed Murray’s two singles titles there somewhat eclipse his predecessor reaching the quarter-finals that time.

Like Bennett, Cocker is an astute and acerbic satirist of modern British life whose biting wit can’t help but be undermined by his cosy, familiar Yorkshire accent. Ooh, lovely.

Rod Stewart is your grandma’s favourite strutting pop-rocker with a twinkle in his eye and clutch of excellent karaokeclassic tunes in his repertoire. Robbie Williams is your mum’s.

THE NEW SEAN CONNERY

Daniel Craig Trust is the most powerful trump card I’ve got. I’ve always done what I’ve said I’d do and I’ve tried what I’ve said I’d try. I haven’t done weird things like blowing stuff up people’s bums or running off with this or that, or any other random shit most celebs get caught doing at some stage. I’m boring and quite predictable.

THE NEW ALAN HANSEN

Gary Neville Housewives’ favourite Hansen helped open up the Premier League on MotD, just as Neville’s astute commentary has won him plaudits. Hansen, though, wisely avoided managerial waters.

With the slightest of sideways smiles, Connery gave James Bond a charisma it seemed could never be matched. Until Craig’s iteration of 007 — the coolest yet, no smile required.

I was all right at the javelin back in the day. I’ve always had a pretty good throw. I was in the 50m range, which was OK. I’m worth a tenth of what people say I am. I don’t even know if that would be true or not. Anyway, I’m definitely not extravagant. Money means some stability, but I’m not motivated by cash more than what I think is considered normal. In the next 10 years I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family, getting to India, Peru, and throwing more parties. Playing more cards. And drinking more whisky, tequila, cachaça, bourbon. Cooking more — I like being in a restaurant kitchen, that’s where I’m comfortable — and getting in a hammock more often. Jamie’s Super Food is currently airing on Channel 4. Super Food Family Classics (Penguin Random House) is out now

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THE NEW FR ED DIBNA H

Michael Portillo A Bolton steeplejack and a Hertfordshire Tory MP might not have much in common, but it’s amazing what loving trains can do for one’s profile, as both might attest (if Dibnah was alive).

Seven more unlikely national treasures to have emerged since the Nineties

GAFFER

Sir Alex Ferguson B Y DAV I D G OL DB L AT T

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n British popular culture of the last quarter of a century, football has been king. There have been pretenders to the throne. For a moment the London Olympics usurped it. Fashion, food, computer games, festivals, reality TV and the sorry parade of celebrity culture have consumed us, but there is nothing to compare to football: more punters than the Church of England, more ecstatic crowds than Glastonbury, bigger TV audiences than the royal wedding, more media space than all the soap operas put together. It has a cast of thousands but nobody has lasted longer, won more or generated bigger headlines than Sir Alex Ferguson. In an era when the average tenure of a Premier League manager is less than two years, his 26-year stint at Manchester United speaks for itself. Since 1991, five years after he joined the Red Devils from Aberdeen, his teams won 13 Premier League titles, four FA Cups, four League Cups, the UEFA Champions League twice, an Intercontinental and a FIFA Club World Cup and nine Community Shields. League title number 12 for Ferguson made it 19 for Manchester United in total and Liverpool, with 18 championships, were duly “knocked off their fucking perch”. The 1999 Champions League win finally put to bed the ghosts of Sir Matt Busby and the 1968 European Cup winners. Winning it again in 2008 made his position within United’s mythological hierarchy unassailable. At their best, his teams played high-tempo, attacking football with a swagger and self-confidence that delivered extraordinary last-minute goals and victories. He was immortalised long before his departure from football. Three autobiographies and innumerable biographies and profiles have long been constructing his mythic history and ascent. The English language has made a place for him. The Oxford English Dictionary, quoting Ferguson on the last stretch of the 2003 title race, defines “squeaky-bum time” as “the tense final stages of a league competition, especially from the point of view of the leaders”. In the lexicon of football we have had eponymous great players — the “Cruyff turn” and “Fritz Walter weather” — but

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Alex Ferguson photographed in the dugout at Old Trafford, Manchester, March 1992

no coach had been similarly recognised till “Fergie time” was coined: the extraordinary capacity when United needed it most, for additional time to stretch out. Herbert Chapman’s bust sat for decades in the marble halls of Highbury, but like all the older generation of football managers — Stan Cullis, Brian Clough, Bill Shankly — they had to die before they were publicly commemorated. Ferguson, very much alive, has already been cast in bronze by “royal sculptor” Philip Jackson. In this regard, his only peer is Bobby Robson, commemorated at Ipswich before his death in 2009. Both were knighted, joining Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Matt Busby as the only other football managers so honoured. The fate of Manchester United since his retirement in 2013 has confirmed Ferguson’s stature. In a parallel of life after Busby, United have been, by their standards, poor to calamitous. Anointed successor David Moyes proved to be Fergie-lite. Louis van Gaal’s joyless Dutch technocracy was marginally more successful but failed to match a shadow of the bravado and sporting showmanship of Ferguson’s years. Whether José Mourinho can do any better remains to be seen. Although a regular presence in Old Trafford’s directors’ box, Ferguson has found more time for politics. Long a confidant of the inner circle of New Labour, and a generous donor to the party, he was an important voice in the “No” campaign during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. The authentic voice of Scots who’d gone south to make their careers without ever abandoning their identity and allegiance to Scotland, he sparred with nationalist leader Alex Salmond over their

exclusion from the referendum electorate and appeared in key adverts and appeals for the “remainers”. Perhaps his most noticeable new venture has been his appointment at Harvard Business School; a sinecure that other New Labour luminaries like Eds Miliband and Balls, have taken up. Here, academics mined Ferguson for his method, yielding scholarly articles and the manual, Leading. While there is much of passing interest in these, to my eye they miss what is important about Ferguson, and why he is, if not always loved, so venerated. The clue is in one of his conversations, completely unremarked upon by the Boston Brahmins: “It’s a working-class thing.” More precisely, it’s a Scottish working-class thing. “When the wind’s howling down the Clyde, that’s what forges your character.” Born in 1941 in Govan, once the shipbuilding heart of Glasgow, Ferguson is the son of a shipyard timekeeper, a child of the old working classes of the Great Depression. Raised in a tenement without running hot water or a bathroom, he knew manual work as an apprentice toolmaker and fiery shop steward before getting his football break at St Johnston. Between finishing as a player and managing full time at St Mirren, he ran an equally fiery pub. Although he would go on to earn a small fortune, move in circles more august than any of his footballing predecessors or contemporaries, his inner circle has always been drawn from his Govan days. Self-educated and sharp-minded, he became a voracious reader but his speech barely shifted. Responding to media criticism of Juan Sebastián Verón he remarked, “On you go. I’m no’ fucking talking to you. He’s a fucking great

When the average tenure of a Premier League manager is now less than two years, Ferguson’s 26-year stint speaks for itself

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PROVOCATEUR

Sacha Baron Cohen S I R A L E X F E R G U S O N Continued…

INTERVIEW BY SANJIV BHATTACHARYA

player. Yous are fucking idiots.” Above all Ferguson created a football club that really was a collective project, in which the common good trumped any ego or private interest, in which solidarity and mutual respect really did translate into the extraordinary team power of United’s finest performances. Neither democrat nor saint, he combined theatrical authoritarianism in the dressing room with public contempt for officials, but it was his charisma, human touch, wit and will forged in the central belt of Scotland that truly catalysed these teams. Football is a social democratic game in a neo-liberal world. Hyper commercialised, privatised, gentrified and sold by the pound, its demeanour and icons remain resolutely working class. Its players still get wages, the manager is still the gaffer, its clubs still reflect the geography of Victorian England. Our collective obsession with a game that seemed destined for the scrap heap in the Eighties is the long goodbye to the industrial working-class Britain that forged it. Ferguson’s rise is an echo of those times. Of settled and supportive community, of a still united kingdom, of the possibility of real social mobility without the middle-class vault of higher education, of rising to the top but staying true to where you came from. His departure and the futile wait for a British successor of such a calibre suggests that however much we scrutinise his words, the conditions and the culture that moulded him have gone. We are all the poorer for it.

Sacha Baron Cohen (as Borat), photographed at the Cannes Film Festival, May 2006

Like it was yestertoday Ten things you’d think had never been away

Drum ’n’ bass

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Craig David

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The female midriff

Cold Feet

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have been incredibly lucky. And this business is predominantly luck. It’s hard to tell others to keep following their dreams forever. Unlike becoming a surgeon, you can be incredibly talented and still unlikely to make enough to feed your family.

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Honesty is great, but I’d prefer it if someone was funny. It’s actually quite hard to make me laugh. The funniest people I’ve ever known died within weeks of each other: Garry Shandling and my dad. My dad was the wittiest man I’ve ever met. He could spar with the greatest; most of his lines were gags. When I was 23, I went on holiday to Astrakhan in south Russia. It was incredibly primitive. The plane was like a bus, there were people standing in the aisle all the way. The woman next to me was chewing on a chicken bone and reading an anti-Semitic cartoon. Anyway, I went to this doctor there and he said, “In England you say, ‘Cock! Cock!’ But in America they say, ‘Caak! Caak!’ Yes?” And I started laughing immediately. He was the guy that eventually became Borat. I owe him some roubles. When I pretended to kill an elderly woman at the Bafta-LA Awards, Mel Brooks sent me an email saying that the gag was a classic. That was one of the most satisfying moments of my career. In England, being funny is part of masculinity. If you’re the funniest guy in the room in England, it’s like being the richest guy in the room in America. Getty

Satire challenges the autocrats. In mocking the establishment you keep

Champion

Winona Ryder

The Clintons

their power in check to some degree. Although I might just be trying to sound like I have an important job.

He’d asked Blair to shut down the movie, and Blair had to explain that England wasn’t a dictatorship.

I think Americans are more polite than the English. If I brought a bag of human excrement to the dinner table of a posh English family, they’d tell me to get out. In high society in the South, they were more focused on not offending me.

My clown coach, Philippe Gaulier, taught me a style of comedy called bouffon, where if you want to undermine someone you insist you’re them, and they’re the imposter. So you both end up saying, “No, no, I’m the real one.” I used it as Borat. When the President of Kazakhstan flew to Washington DC, partly to try to shut down the movie, I held a press conference outside the embassy and said that I was the real voice of Kazakhstan. It was a medieval theory of comedy but it worked.

Originally, Borat was a disaster. I was depressed, the original director left and the studio gave us two weeks to replace him, or they’d shut it down. So, anyway, I went to Garry Shandling’s house — he had this basketball game on Sundays for comedians — and when I went up for a basket, I landed on his foot and rolled my ankle. I tore two ligaments. But because of that, the insurance paid for a three-month hiatus and I managed to call Peter Baynham, who had worked with Coogan on Partridge, and together we re-wrote the movie. So really, Shandling’s foot saved Borat. People in London are direct. If they don’t like you, they call you a cunt to your face — which I get a lot. But people in LA have this pseudo-psychoanalytic way of speaking because most of them have had therapy. It’s hard to know if they think you’re a cunt or not. Which makes life a bit challenging. Satire becomes easier the more absurd the world gets. Part of the success of Borat was that it was in the middle of the Bush government. When there’s frustration and anger, satire feels good, it releases some of that energy. International politics can be incredibly petty. I actually got a letter from Tony Blair saying that I’d made the President of Kazakhstan’s state visit complicated.

Plaid shirts

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I bet the other two writers for Brüno I could get celebrities to sit on Mexicans as chairs. They said it was impossible, but I’d read about the Milgram experiment, where if you tell someone everyone’s doing something, they’re more likely to do it. I told the celebrities, “Oh, Johnny Depp sat on some Nicaraguans...” And Paula Abdul and La Toyah Jackson both sat on Mexicans. I won. I’ll do anything for a joke. In Borat, the original naked fight had me sitting on Ken [Davitian’s] face. On the day, director Larry Charles said, “It’d be funnier the other way around.” I couldn’t argue. I told the makeup person, “You have to thoroughly clean his rectum. And I need a mask for the nose and mouth.” But when we did the scene no one could find the mask. Ken found it later hidden in a part of his tummy. When they put me on The Sunday Times Rich List in England, I almost sued. Most people sue because the list says they’re poorer than they actually are, but my problem was they’d made me richer and I was embarrassed by it.

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Alexander McQueen photographed by Rebecca Lewis, Exmouth Market, London, 2005

SHOWMAN

Alexander McQueen

S A C H A B A R O N C O H E N Continued…

Everything is shit until it isn’t. In any creative work, it’s very unlikely it’s going to be good at first. You have to have faith and work on it till it’s good. I’m in the turd-polishing business. On the night of the premiere of Da Ali G Show in America, The Evening Standard headline was “Ali G bombs in America”, and the Guardian wrote this in-depth analysis about why. But it wasn’t true! They were so committed to this idea that American and English humour are different. But I don’t think they are. There’s this great camaraderie among comedians in LA. In England, people work in their individual fiefdoms, but [in LA], they offer advice on each others’ projects. If Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] have a movie, they’ll get my thoughts on it and vice versa. They’ve realised that if comedy is successful it’s good for everyone because they’ll make more comedies. In Arkansas, there’s a public decency statute loophole that allows you to simulate gay sex onstage, even though the law was meant for straight sex. Danger isn’t thrilling, it’s scary. I’m not very brave. At the end of Brüno, there’s this gay scene in the middle of a cage fight, and it felt like there was a 50–50 chance I’d go to hospital in a significant way. You’ve got your crew there, you don’t want to waste their time and you want to give the audience something they’ve never seen. That’s the impetus. I guess I can overcome my fear and just do it.

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BY ALEX BILMES

hen Lee McQueen died, in 2010, aged 40, it had been two years since I’d seen him. We were not friends (that “Lee” suggests no intimacy; it’s what he was called), but I interviewed him at length, on a number of occasions, and without knowing him well I liked and admired him very much. He was not especially articulate in conversation, he did not enjoy talking to journalists, but once the barriers were down he was warm, intelligent and thoughtful, and his exquisite clothes and the fantastic theatricals he created in which to display them spoke eloquently for him, and for themselves. The cartoon of McQueen that emerged after his suicide was of a tortured genius with an extreme predilection for the melancholy and the macabre. Doubtless there’s truth in that, but it makes it sound like it must have been painful to be around him. It wasn’t. The McQueen I spent time with could be frosty and tart but he also laughed a lot, and he certainly made me laugh. Why,

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I once asked him, were so many gay men drawn to designing women’s clothes? “Because we’re too scared to be plumbers,” he said. He had an original eye: he saw things differently. He spent a good deal of time telling me about his collection of photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin (freakish tableaux, mangled body parts). He liked Witkin, he said, because “he takes something quite grotesque and turns it into something beautiful. The more I talk about his work and the more people ask me about it, the more I go back to the Witkins in my house and look at them and think, ‘Is there something wrong with me for liking this stuff?’ Because other people do find them very disturbing. But I always come away thinking I like it for the right reasons: because it changes my mind about what is beauty and what is not.” What is beauty? That question was absolutely key to McQueen. His shows were startling. In 2001, McQueen staged a collection behind a two-way mirror that culminated with a huge glass box shattering to reveal a naked model

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McQueen could be frosty and tart. But he also made me laugh. Why do gay men design women’s clothes? ‘Because we’re too scared to be plumbers’

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surrounded by hundreds of live moths. “I find moths just as beautiful as butterflies,” he said to me, his voice soft and adenoidal. “Plus they only appear at night. There’s more beauty at night, when the lights are off, than there is in the day.” Dark, yes, eerie. But beautiful and moving. He was the son of a taxi driver and a teacher, from Bow. It was his mother who saw an advertisement for apprentices on Savile Row and guided him towards Anderson & Sheppard, where he learned pattern cutting. “You’ve got to know the rules to break them,” he said to me. “That’s what I’m here for: to demolish the rules but keep the tradition.” I visited him at his Clerkenwell studio, watched him fit fabric on to models, wielding his scissors while his English bull terrier, Juice, charged around the room. McQueen was an artisan and proud of it: “I don’t create art. That won’t put dinner on my plate. I create clothes for people to wear.” Propped in a corner of the room, silently, decisively and gorgeously contradicting him, were the pair of ornately carved wooden legs that he once made for the double amputee athlete, Aimee Mullins, to strut down his catwalk. McQueen was not comfortable with fame. “I’m not good it,” he said. “I’m too private. If I’m partying then I don’t give a shit who sees me. But take the piss out of me and I’ll come up and thump you.” He didn’t care much for glamour. “Glamour? I’ve got odd socks on!” International travel was “just travel — I can’t stand it”. Fine dining was “just food.” He once complained to me of his disgust at having to travel in “space wagons” — the people carriers rented to ferry him around. This was an aesthetic consideration: they were ugly. He only wanted to go in saloon cars. He knew I found this funny; he was playing the diva to make me laugh. He suffered setbacks (a marriage that didn’t last, an unhappy period at Givenchy) but he was proud of his success. “So many designers go bankrupt,” he said. “We never have. I want McQueen to keep growing. It’s either onwards or nothing at all.” His horrible, sad ending should not be allowed to obscure the fact that he was the most gifted fashion designer of his generation, one of the greatest ever.

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke in the video for ‘No Surprises’, 1997

CROWD-PLEASERS

Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner BY PE T E R BR A D SH AW

P O S T-RO C K E R S

Radiohead s far as Hollywood goes, it’s tempting to paraphrase Colin Welland’s famous remark: “the British are coming”… but do they ever entirely arrive? Our actors have always been loved there and nowadays pass for Americans with perfectly fabricated accents; our technicians and creatives enjoy the highest regard and studio facilities here have historically been the nursery for iconic US movies. But do our producers have clout on the Hollywood level? Two of them

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BY ANDREW HARRISON

n 1997, when your correspondent still had the constitution for midweek drinking, Radiohead’s bassist Colin Greenwood used to join us in the pubs of Stockwell. At a friend’s flat after last orders one night, Colin asked if he could put a tape on. The band had finished some stuff, he said, and they weren’t sure whether it was any good. This is how I first heard OK Computer, the album that marked Radiohead’s elevation from mere best-in-class rock band to pathfinders for a new century, quantum scientists of sound. I think Colin knew it was good all along. OK Computer was just the beginning, of course. Subsequently Radiohead would dive deep into the seething subconscious of modern electronica on Kid A/Amnesiac, questioning the unthinking ritual of rock music in a world of infinitely malleable sound. With later records like In Rainbows and

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2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool they arrived at a compelling replacement for the spent form of the rock song. Their obsessively worked swatches of feeling would capture the confusion, dislocation, fear and occasional elation of life in the 21st century. They changed the industry, too. By releasing 2007’s In Rainbows without warning, direct to fans on a pay-whatyou-want deal, Radiohead overturned a deadening, marketing-led approach which made music into a commodity instead of an event. Singer Thom Yorke’s politics and impressionistic dancing are acquired tastes, sure. His edicts against Spotify can sound Luddite. But would Radiohead have dragged rock music sideways to the future without some need for vindication in their hearts? “Bands are like battery hens these days,” Yorke told me in 2008. “You need to have gone through that battery hen process, like we did, to have the nerve to say ‘fuck you’.”

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do, actually. Or almost. Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of the production powerhouse Working Title have for decades been a distinctively British-based creative team that punches above its weight on both sides of the Atlantic. New Zealand-born Bevan and Brit Fellner are our equivalent of Harvey Weinstein, smart moguls with studio-sized ambitions and Olympic stamina — acquiring properties, nurturing writers, cultivating directors and shrewdly maintaining relationships with the

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Girls allowed

big American players, chiefly WT’s longtime owner Universal, with whose resources they can produce anything they like up to a budget of $35m without anyone’s say-so. They had their big breakthrough in 1994 with the Richard Curtis romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral, a movie about Hugh Grant’s shy Englishman diffidently charming Andie MacDowell’s sexy, worldly American woman. Was that a parable for Tim and Eric’s seduction of the US industry? Maybe. They became known for other smashes like Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, and it’s become commonplace to deride that signature upper-middle-posh vision of Britain. I can only say that the

Working Title/Hugh Grant/Richard Curtis romantic comedies remain tremendously watchable after 20 years: Notting Hill gave Julia Roberts the best role of her career. But Bevan and Fellner also produced the Coen brothers’ Fargo, The Big Lebowski and A Serious Man, Edgar Wright’s “Cornetto” comedies, Joe Wright’s Atonement and Pride & Prejudice and also Paul Greengrass’s United 93 — the best film about 9/11. Their Oscar winners include The Theory of Everything, about Stephen Hawking, and The Danish Girl, about transgender artist Lili Elbe. They are a virtual industry in themselves, and Tim and Eric are sleek and resplendent with success, healthy and beaming.

25 British women we have loved since 1991

And they really are passionate about what they do. It extends to making their views clear to critics. After a disobliging review I wrote about their film Frost/Nixon (actually, it was better than I gave it credit for) I received a crisp email from Eric inviting me to phone him at my earliest convenience so that he could “discuss” this review with me. The conversation had a certain froideur. I once sat near Eric at a lunch in Cannes and, in a slightly cheeky spirit of raillery, pitched him a movie biopic about a positive version of Richard III, without Shakespeare’s villainous spin. Hearing me out patiently, but fixing me with a veiled gaze, Eric said only: “Show me the finished print” — and I had an idea of what it must be like to please him in a creative sense. But many of my good reviews and even the iffy ones are also met with cheerfully good-humoured emails. Fellner and Bevan care about what they do. They have survived changes in financial weather, corporate culture and critical fashion, and still make very successful movies. Whether they like it or not, they are becoming national treasures.

Adele

Å Lily Allen Clare Balding The women of The Big Breakfast: Kelly Brook/Denise van Outen/Gaby Roslin/Paula Yates Kathy Burke Julia Davis

Å Tracey Emin Jessica Ennis-Hill Girls Aloud

25 years of Brit-flicks

Keira Knightley Kylie* The “Ladies” of Little Britain

Men on film: eight homegrown movies we all went to see Top row: Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993) Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994) Nil by Mouth (Gary Oldman, 1997) Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998) Bottom row: Å Mrs Merton

Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000) 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002) Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004) Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)

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*Honorary Brit

Getty | Rex | The Guardian

Tim Bevan, left, and Eric Fellner photographed by Dan Chung, April 2005

ANCHORMAN

Jeremy Paxman INT ERV I EW BY PAU L W I LSON

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Jeremy Paxman, photographed by Greg Williams, London, July 2016

here are several irritating things about life. One is that you have to live it looking forward but can only understand it looking backwards. Another is you may not think you are a very different person to what you were when you were 25, but your body tells you that you’re not. But by and large, I am part of the luckiest generation that has ever lived.

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All judgements about how the world should be run are made by people who are just as fallible, just as noble-minded, just as vainglorious, just as foolish as you or me or anyone else in the room. When we think there is something different about those who determine our fates, we are making a very serious mistake. The only reason I’ve ever done anything is because it seems interesting at the time. I once got to 20,000 words of a novel, a sort of state-of-Britain thing, just for fun. I decided it was rubbish, printed it out and burned it in the back garden. It was cathartic. It reminded me slightly of Harold Macmillan, who discovered the letters between his wife and her lover and burned them all. Putting something out of your mind and saying, “Well, I don’t really want to think about that.”

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I don’t believe that what I have to say to the world on a day-to-day basis is inherently more interesting than what anyone else has to say. This whole social media game has about it an intrinsic arrogance. Asking “why” is the only important question. Most of us, in my trade, spend our times asking how or when or what. Really we should be asking why and that does interest me a lot. I don’t know what the answer is. I went to a funeral yesterday, at a crematorium but it had a religious context, which attempts to give meaning — not to the corpse, obviously — to something that will happen to us all, but I’m not sure it succeeded. I wish it did. I would like to know.

I’m not a fan of the French. It is a ridiculous country. They’re easy to wind up. A bit like the Jocks I was born in Leeds because both my parents were from Yorkshire. My father used to say that this was because, at the time, Yorkshire County Cricket Club could only play players who were born in Yorkshire. Sadly, I wasn’t much good at cricket. I really wish I had been. I am perfectly happy to confess to an unreasonable pride in being able to claim to be a Yorkshireman. Yorkshire people are wonderfully arrogant and I plead guilty to that. Born in Middlesex? What’s the point in belonging to Middlesex? There’s no point at all. I don’t talk about my children or anything like that. My view is perfectly straightforward on this. Anyone else is entitled to say what they like or make public what they like about themselves, but it’s not up to others. I’ve never asked anyone about his or her private life. I’m not a fan of the French. It is a ridiculous country. Ours is a pragmatic culture, theirs is a theoretical culture. And they’re very easy to wind up. A bit like the Jocks, you know? It’s good fun winding up the Jocks. Although I am a quarter Scottish: like everyone in these islands, I am a mongrel. If I was a Scotsman, I would see nothing to fear in independence at all. I don’t see anything to fear from the break-up of the union. It would be a good thing for the English, to force them to address what it is that makes this lazy country what it is. I’m not worried about that. Telling people something so that they can say, “Well, I never knew that.” That’s the thing. The great lie about fly-fishing is that banal response people have: “I couldn’t do it because it requires too much patience, which I haven’t got.” It actually requires no patience at all because you are constantly engrossed; you’re watching a trout that’s coming up and you’re trying to work out what kind of fly it’s taking and whether you’ve got an imitation you can drop on the water in a plausible fashion. It’s a deeply unglamorous activity but I enjoy it.

Caitlin Moran

Seeing people shot or seeing dead bodies, people who have died violent deaths, creates an impression in you that you can never, never erase. [Working as a BBC TV news correspondent in conflict zones] I came to feel sympathy for and admire but nonetheless look rather sceptically at those freelance photographers who live for the next cover of Time or Newsweek or whatever, and were therefore required to be near the action. TV requires you to be near the action, or it did then. Writing, you can do some way back, although I had several friends who were killed writing. I don’t think you ever really blank these memories from your mind.

Å Kate Moss

I love students and am amazed by their enthusiasm. I know it’s not fashionable to say you like students, but I don’t care. I’m impressed by what they know and occasionally astonished by what they don’t know. The best of them understand that University Challenge is a quiz that has to be taken seriously but it is only a bloody stupid quiz. I don’t feel old and I have no intention of getting out of the saddle, as it were. Although there is a good argument for saying that old people should. We’ve got a big problem with old people in this country. There are far too many of them around, they get in the way and distort the whole democratic process. People go on about lowering the voting age to 16. I can’t see any point in doing that. I would just stop old people voting. Politicians defer to them, because they know they go out and vote. The first concession they make is to guarantee that young people, or younger people, will have to carry on working in order to pay old people’s pensions. Clearly, as long as people are working, they should have a say in the government that forcibly removes money from their wallet. But once they’re net beneficiaries, they should be stopped from voting.

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Sienna Miller

There are politicians with whom I would be happy to spend an evening. I don’t have politicians as friends. You must be able to trust your friends.

Å Patsy from Ab Fab JK Rowling

Å Zadie Smith Jane Tennison Emma Watson Rachel Weisz

Å Amy Winehouse Kate Winslet Kirsty Young

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J E R E M Y P A X M A N Continued…

Brit-lit classics

My iron rule when cycling is: if you are at a road junction and there’s a car there and you’ve not had eye contact with the driver, that driver probably hasn’t seen you. It’s not that drivers want to kill you, they just haven’t registered you. What sort of person would drive a 4x4 in London? Wankers. Everybody has a story. When they approached me to do Who Do You Think You Are?, I said I’m not interested in family history. They came back and said, “We can’t tell you what we’ve found out but we guarantee you will find it interesting.” It was fascinating. I realised that sort of experience is true of everybody. You don’t have to go far: talk to anyone and ask them about their lives. We’ve all got fascinating tales because human beings are intrinsically interesting: silly things, great things, noble things.

Take Me Out is a great show. It’s very funny. I love the fact that everyone has been prepped with some remark along the lines of, “I love marshmallows and you can marsh my mallow any time.” But what did I watch the other day? Is it You’ve Been Framed? It is terrible! Absolutely awful! You can’t believe that they’ve got on air. A Life in Questions (William Collins) is out now

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Fever Pitch

Bravo Two Zero

by Will Self (1991)

by Nick Hornby (1992)

by Andy McNab (1993)

Nick Hornby photographed by Dan Burn-Forti, 2009

GOONER

My other conclusion about human beings generally is that, if you give them the chance, they are inclined to be kind. Most people are decent. You might be unlucky and have some bad experiences — we’ve all had those — but most people are intrinsically decent. Of course, as a journalist you are cantankerous. It’s the nature of the trade. I cannot be answerable for what other people have said about me. People make value judgements. Those who say, “Mr Rude” or “Mr Dyspeptic”, they are going to say those things. I hope it’s not true. I love live telly. There’s something about the requirement to consolidate and perform when that red light goes on. Everybody is nervous. As time goes by you get less apprehensive, but without any kind of apprehension, I don’t think you’d be interesting to watch or listen to.

The Quantity Theory of Insanity

Nick Hornby I N T E RV I EW BY PAU L W I L SON

was at an American wedding once and there was a dinner where everybody spoke. They were lovely people and everyone who spoke was smart and funny, but I like to know when things are coming to an end.

I

When I’d get stuck with work, I’d walk away from my desk and sit down with the Guardian cryptic crossword. But then you develop a situation where you’re stuck on two things, work and the crossword. So a few months ago, I switched to jigsaws. You never get stuck on a jigsaw,

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you just sort of plod through and it empties your mind. I just did the Sgt Pepper’s cover. You know those flowers that spell out “Beatles”? None of the pieces are big enough to look like a letter, they’re just red flowers you then have to arrange. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, including writing books. I’m still in therapy. I’ll always go, I think. I stop and start. This last six months I haven’t been going but I know that I will go back. It comes down to times where I am maddening myself or getting stuck in ways of thinking.

Eight British books you bought (and maybe even read) since 1991

Trainspotting

Man and Boy

Saturday

The Line of Beauty

The Damned Utd

by Irvine Welsh (1993)

by Tony Parsons (1999)

by Ian McEwan (2005)

by Alan Hollinghurst (2005)

by David Peace (2006)

I ran out of things to say about the slightly hopeless blokes I used to write about. One thing I’ve thought in retrospect is that the situation of the slightly hopeless bloke is essentially undramatic, because nobody’s stopping him from doing what he wants to do apart from himself. The thing about writing parts for young women [Hornby wrote the screenplays for An Education, Wild and Brooklyn], is that there are outside forces preventing them from doing most things. Natural dramatic conflict. It wasn’t like I ever set out to do it; we stumbled across the material for An Education. One of the big realisations for me was that if you write a really good part for a young woman, you get the best young women in the world to be in it. If you write a really good part for a young man, you get loads of responses like, “Yeah, I really like this but I’ve just been offered $40m to put on a superhero suit.” When it got to Oscar nomination day for An Education, I thought the phone would ring and someone would say, “Are you sitting down?” In fact what happens is you get an email the night before saying, “Please be ready by your phone and you’ll be doing the first press 10 minutes after the nominations.” At this point you haven’t even been nominated. Then you get a nomination and you think, “Thank fuck for that.” The idea that we all gather around a work of fiction and it represents the country and we all talk about it — that’s going, or gone.

Books, music, TV and films have consumed my life. My connection to them meant that, from quite a young age, I didn’t think I’d be able to live a normal life. The feelings they gave me meant that I wouldn’t be happy trying to sell soap. When Fever Pitch came out, of course it was great, but it was a memoir about football and I was offered lots of other books about football. That seemed to me like a very bad way to go. All I ever wanted to do was keep it going, and get the chance to do the kind of interesting work that I wanted to do. But the longer your career goes on, the more you realise that it’s actually quite fragile. If you stop thinking that you’re in trouble. You are really not famous as a writer. But the money’s good and no one bothers you. Family life has been really complicated. It’s kind of hilarious if you’ve got a child with a disability [Hornby’s eldest son has severe autism] and you split up with your wife. You sort of say, “That’s it, we’re getting divorced — see you at 4 o’clock.” You get through in three weeks what might take other couples three years. I know couples who’ve split up and don’t go in each other’s houses. We literally couldn’t do that. My wife [with whom Hornby has two sons] and my ex-wife see each other all the time. It feels like two families with separate houses. If you can combine comedy and melancholy, it feels more representative of a life than almost anything else.

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N I C K H O R N B Y Continued…

My dad left when I was about nine and went to live in a different country, so there was no regular fatherson relationship. The trouble with that is you can be walking around thinking, “Well, I’m not living in a different country, I’m a great father.” So in terms of fatherhood being done well or done badly, I don’t have that consciousness from my father. I’ve had to make it up. I don’t think anything prepares you for the particular character of your children and the circumstances they find themselves in. There are some things that are completely maddening, like bloody Arsenal. My two youngest boys get destroyed by bad results. I’m going, “Oh God, it’s only a game”, but they’re 13 and 12. They’ve been into it since they’ve been about five or six. There was a time when I was quite happy not taking them, actually. It was like, “I’m off to the football now”, and suddenly you’re taking two little kids who weep most of the time because it’s so crap. I didn’t learn to drive until I was over 40. After I got divorced, I needed to pick my son up from school and forced myself to pass my test, first time, despite all instincts. But since he left school I’ve stopped. It made me feel sick with nerves, and when I had two scrapes in a week I decided that discretion was the better part of valour. I still go to quite a lot of gigs. I try and make sure I see people I want to see. I do like finding new bands. I’m a big Spotify person and I’ll make a Spotify playlist for friends who’ve stopped listening to new music. The one I made recently, it sounds like it was made in 1956. All new music, made this year, people like JD McPherson, the rockabilly guy. Well within my comfort zone. The last couple of years, I’ve finally got jazz. I know it’s the cliché of my age, but it’s fantastic. I was reading something, and suddenly thought I was fed up of everything I listen to being in 4/4 and sounding more or less the same, I’d like to hear something different. I found the right jazz and that was that.

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The best thing about influence: if something goes in right, and comes out right, the other person wouldn’t know that you’ve ripped them off. I lost my hair when I was in my mid-twenties. I didn’t want to be a TV presenter and I had girlfriends: if either of those things were different, it might have been more problematic. Then, of course, you get older and everyone starts going bald and now I really like getting the clippers out, and that’s it: done. Writing is a very bad job for feeling at the end of the day that you have done something because most times I haven’t done what I have intended to. One thing that makes me feel OK is if I’ve gone to the gym for an hour and sweated a lot. I come back and feel reasonably calm. It helps to keep fit, but it’s more for the head than the body. I am so old I have smoked everywhere. Planes. Tubes. Hospitals. First time I had a knee operation, after doing something playing football, I came round in the ward and there was this fug of smoke, these young men who had either come off motorbikes or done their cartilages. Ashtrays by the beds. Now, I vape 3mg of nicotine a day. That’ll do me. Zero I can’t do. But I really like the flavours, they’re fantastic. I don’t think it’s possible to recreate the intensity that you feel when you don’t know anything about anything. I still get enormous pleasure from discovering new things, but the sense of being lasered by something in your teenage years and early twenties, when you’re a blank sheet of paper and people are writing on you for the first time — it’s hard to recreate that in your fifties. When I go to a football match with an American, I always feel nervous and think, “Just don’t let it be 0–0.” Unless they are being annoying about it, in which case I want it to be 0–0. I took Michael Chabon and his boys, and I wanted them to see goals. It finished Arsenal 7, Newcastle 3. It was like his boys had had 15 shots of espresso. The youngest one had the retainers on his teeth made red and white.

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ROYALS

William and Harry Windsor

Getty

BY MICK BROWN

ut what, you might ask, are they actually for? It’s easy to be sceptical about the two princes. Privileged, rich, leading a life of indolence and ease, with burdensome royal “duties” that seem to consist of little more than smiling on cue for the camera — not much cause for sympathy there, it might seem. But consider this. Your mother, elevated to the status of a secular saint, dies when you are 15 (in William’s case, 12 in the case of Harry). Rather than being allowed to grieve in private, duty — the old-fashioned word that will come to dominate your life — demands that you walk in the funeral cortege, in the full scrutiny of a global television audience estimated at 2.5bn people. Thereafter you are the property of the world. Your life, quite literally, is no longer your own. Your future is pre-ordained. Your every movement and utterance is scrutinised and judged. You are fawned over and criticised in equal measure. Your girlfriends will be subject to the same rigorous scrutiny, and found wanting; your indiscretions the stuff of public amusement and faux outrage. If your name is Prince Harry, what happens in Vegas has a snowball in hell’s chance of staying in Vegas. As the likely heir to the throne, Prince William has done what Prince William was supposed to do. European princesses being rather thin on the ground these days, and in the spirit of egalitarianism the spin-machine behind the Royal Family is

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The princes’ lives are not their own. Every movement and utterance is judged and scrutinised

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Princes Harry and William shake hands after competing on opposing polo teams, Ascot, June 2011

keen to promote, he has married a nice, sensible, middle-class English girl and produced two children who will ensure the continuity of the crown and be a boon for retailers of children’s clothes, manufacturers of postcards and commemorative mugs and plates as well as the paparazzi for years to come. Stolid and utterly conventional, he is as comforting a fixture in the national psyche as The Great British Bake Off. Life is more difficult for Harry. Fifth in line to the throne, his is a life where he has to invent something for himself. Initially this seemed largely to consist of playing the essential role of the troubled child — smoking dope, falling drunk out of nightclubs, wearing Nazi outfits to fancy-dress parties, being linked to a succession of pretty, and not altogether suitable, young women. But recently, in that way you sometimes do with public figures, more and more nowadays I find myself rather liking Harry. The missteps have made him all the more human. More than the forced show of being “fun” that it is necessary for any royal to summon when the occasion demands it, he appears to have a genuine, irreverent sense of humour. He has his mother’s common touch, and her touch of showbiz. He is touchy-feely, but in a spontaneous and unembarrassing way. He seems a decent man, as his support for servicemen, his creation of the Invictus Games demonstrates. He wears his privilege lightly. If the world admires William, it loves Harry. What are they for? Essentially to be the best possible public relations men that the Royal Family, and by extension the country, could possibly wish for. Neither chose to be a prince, but having drawn the short straws, both, in their own very different ways, do it rather well.

FORMER PRIME MINISTER

Tony Blair BY ALEX BILMES

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SIMON EMMETT

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Tony Blair in his suite at the Ritz-Carlton Herzliya, Israel, 10 September 2016

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O

n the morning of our final meeting for this article, in mid-September, Tony Blair gave me a tour of the art on display in his London office. On a wall facing his desk, on the far side of a substantial room, is a 19th-century painting of a Cairo street scene. On another, a present from Cherie, Blair’s wife: a black and white photograph of an Orthodox Jew sitting beside a market stall. On a third wall, a painting of pilgrims on the outskirts of Jerusalem, also 19th-century. Most imposing is a large map of Africa and the Middle East. As we looked at it, Blair marvelled at the size of Africa, and then he pointed out Israel — we’d been there, together, a few days earlier — and remarked on how tiny it is compared to the Arab states surrounding it. We continued the tour. Alongside the family snaps of Tony and Cherie and their four children, now all grown up, there’s an eye-catching photograph of two small boys playing football on a dirt pitch in, he thinks, Rwanda — another country we’d visited together. Looking around the room, I made some bland comment on the fact he was surrounded by images of his present preoccupations, the concerns he spends the majority of his time on, and that he returns to most regularly in conversation: peace in the Middle East, economic and political development in Africa. I confess I hadn’t noticed that other than a maquette for a statue of Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister of the Sixties and Seventies, there were no obvious representations of Britain, or Britishness. But I think Blair noticed, suddenly, because as soon as I made my remark he took off at a clip, opened the doors to an adjoining sitting room — I grabbed my voice recorder and scuttled along behind him — and began to talk me through the pictures on the walls: British scenes by British artists. It’s a fraught business, the giving of interviews, the management of a public reputation, especially one such as his. The Office of Tony Blair is an organisation — you might even say an idea — as well as a physical space. It is headquartered, for the moment, in a terraced townhouse — stucco ground floor, brick above — on a corner of Grosvenor Square: prime Mayfair real estate. Blair left Downing Street in 2007 with, as he put it to me, “three people and four mobile phones: no office, no back-up, no nothing.” In the nine years since, he has built a new infrastructure to enable him to do all the things he wants to do. (There are many.) He now employs around 200 people on his various ventures, philanthropic and otherwise. These are funded by his own money, earned through his commercial work,

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Blair at the offices of the Quartet on the Middle East, East Jerusalem, 9 September 2016

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as well as the donations of high net-worth individuals (extremely rich people, in human-speak), and in some cases, the aid and overseas development budgets of foreign governments. Building this organisation has been perhaps his most consuming task since stepping down as prime minister. Like the American embassy on the other side of Grosvenor Square, which is to relocate south of the river, the Blair office is to move to more modern surroundings. He is bringing all his different enterprises under one roof. He estimates he already spends 80 per cent of his time on pro bono work, and it is his intention to close down the business side of his operation, Tony Blair Associates, winding up both Firerush (which advises governments) and Windrush (which advises individuals). He will keep some of his paid-for consultancies — the most lucrative of which is his work as an adviser to JP Morgan, the American bank, which pays him £2m each year — and he will still accept speaking engagements, but the more (or most) controversial aspects of his work since stepping down as prime minister will cease. Broadly, Blair works now in four areas: promoting and helping to implement good governance in Africa and the developing world; building a framework to launch a new peace process in the Middle East; coming up with ideas to combat the ideology of fundamentalist Islam; making the intellectual argument for the centre-ground in politics. He also has a foundation promoting sport, and another promoting inter-faith relations. Blair is extremely busy, that much I was able to glean. Each moment of each day that I spent with him was accounted for. One meeting is followed immediately by the next. He starts early and finishes late. He rarely breaks for lunch. In fact, he does not seem to eat lunch. The concept of the weekend, too, seems somewhat irrelevant to him. (He remains a big fan of holidays, though.) What, exactly, is he doing? Why is he doing it? There may not be simple answers to these questions. It sounds, perhaps, ridiculous, but the closest I can get to a job description is that Blair has set himself up as a sort of freelance diplomat, a statesman-without-portfolio. He is an adviser to foreign governments, as well as to private companies. He is a political strategist and policy analyst. He wants to rethink the way the West tackles extremism in all its forms; he wants to rethink the way the West gives aid to developing countries; he wants to make the case for a new kind of radical, pragmatic, centrist geopolitics: a Fourth

Way, perhaps. If we were going to speak in woolly generalisations — and clearly we are, or I am — he wants to bring people together rather than pull them apart, build bridges rather than put up walls, to champion that increasingly unfashionable idea: globalisation. Is he kidding himself? Is anyone listening to him? Isn’t it a bit late for all this? Blair is, of course, a polarising figure, here and abroad — but especially here. In fact, in Britain polarising doesn’t cover it. His brand is toxic. The story of his life, his achievements — whether you think what he achieved is a triumph or a disaster, it would be difficult to argue that he hasn’t achieved anything — are all overshadowed by the run up to the invasion of Iraq, the invasion itself, in 2003, and its horrific aftermath. Blair left office under a cloud and in the nine years since, the skies have not cleared. If anything, they’ve darkened. The cartoon of him drawn by the media is of a man who is avaricious — why is he so rich? — as well as hypocritical — why does he associate with tyrants and tycoons? — and deluded — why can he not accept that the invasion of Iraq was, at best, a terrible mistake? Then there are those who really don’t like him, who say he is a liar, even a war criminal. Blair says that since there is not much he can do about his reputation, especially at home, he has learned to be philosophical about it. He told me he accepts that few in Britain are listening to him. That is why he tries to affect politics overseas. But I sense — though he says it’s not so — that he is also engaged in a reputation-rebuilding exercise. Certainly the closure of Tony Blair Associates could be seen as part of that exercise. Perhaps he views this piece as part of it, too. Perhaps it is. In May, after Blair was interviewed by the BBC’s Andrew Marr, The Times ran a piece under the sneering headline, “Blair: I’m not too rich and do lots of very good work”. The implication of the headline was clear: he is too rich and he doesn’t do lots of very good work. I hoped, with this article, to avoid falling into both those traps: the perceived whitewashing of the Marr interview and the sarcasm and cynicism of The Times piece. (The Times, of course, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a former friend of Blair’s. I mentioned to Blair that that newspaper, in particular, has it in for him. Not that the Daily Mail, and the Guardian, and, in fact, all the other British newspapers don’t. Just that The Times attack on him is particularly aggressive and sustained. He rolled his

eyes, raised his eyebrows, and gave a bewildered shrug, which is what he sometimes did when I mentioned something that he didn’t want to comment on. It’s an effective strategy; you can’t quote a bewildered shrug.) It’s not true to say Blair is universally disliked, here or anywhere else. Not everyone I spoke to, socially and professionally, during the months I was working on this piece, on and off, was violently anti-Blair. But most were. Some made disobliging remarks about his private life. Plenty of people expressed strong reservations about the wisdom of my putting him on the cover of this magazine, some simply because he is unpopular, so the magazine wouldn’t sell, others because he didn’t “deserve” to be on the cover, as if I were giving him an award of some kind. (I’m not. I’m merely suggesting that, for good or ill, he is one of the 25 most influential British men of the past quarter century, which is a different thing entirely.) Others suggested I was either a Blairite apologist, or I would come across as one. They thought I would be spun. There certainly were moments when I felt I was being politely guided towards a toothless portrayal — that visit to a solar power plant in the Rwandan interior: impressive, sure, fascinating even, but perhaps not entirely germane to this story — but then you’d hardly expect his team to direct me towards murkier goings-on, if there were any. I’m not sure anyone can approach the topic of Tony Blair without prejudice, but I tried to keep an open mind. I first went to Grosvenor Square to meet Blair in April of this year. We’d already agreed with his people by then that he would give an interview to Esquire for this, our 25th anniversary issue. While Blair poured coffee, I told him that my intention was to write a piece about his life now. I said I wasn’t interested in point-scoring or party politics — “Lucky you!” he said — but that I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask him to talk about topics he’d probably rather not talk about, in particular the Iraq War and its repercussions. He said that in that case, the main interview would have to wait until after the publication of the Chilcot Report, still some months off at that stage, but until then I was welcome to watch him at work. Blair is 63. In the years since 2007, his hair has greyed and thinned. He looks older, because he is. But his eyes are still bright blue, his skin is still tanned, he is still as slim as a student. He was dressed, at that first meeting, as he was dressed at almost every other meeting to come, in the style of

‘TH E ON LY TH ING I EV ER PROTEST A BOUT IS W H EN PEOPLE SAY, “ YOU DI D I T F OR MO T I V E S T H AT YOU H AV E N O T DI S C L O S E D.” OR , “ YOU DI D IT FOR N EFA R IOUS R E A SONS.” I DIDN’T. I DID IT BECAUSE I THOUGHT I T WA S R IGH T. W H E T H E R I T WA S , T H AT ’ S A M AT T E R OF OPI N ION ’

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a senior business executive: sober navy suit over crisp white shirt, the top two buttons undone to reveal glimpses of a thin gold chain around his neck. If you didn’t recognise him immediately, you might peg him as an investment banker, or the CEO of a media conglomerate. (Or an incumbent world leader.) I did notice one eccentric touch. On more than one occasion he wore black suede RM Williams boots — you know the ones, with the elastic pull-tags at front and back. Not that there’s anything especially rock ’n’ roll about wearing suede boots with a business suit, but it’s a modest signal: I’m not like all those other stuffed shirts. (It’s nice for him, of course, that he’s in good nick. But I sense it antagonises his opponents: Blair looks healthy and comparatively youthful and prosperous and energetic when really he should be pale and cowed and aged and, and, and… it’s not fair! Plus, he wears groovy boots which is, you know, suspect.) Blair has an uncommonly mobile and expressive face. He’s forever grinning — flashing those famous snaggleteeth — or frowning or grimacing or expressing surprise. And actually, for someone often thought to be good at hiding his true feelings — the king of spin — his face gives him away. When he’s bored or frustrated he looks really bored or frustrated. And when he’s faking it, it’s obvious. It was always quite plain to me if I’d asked him something interesting, or made a perceptive remark (it happened rarely enough), or if I’d disappointed him with a dullard’s observation, or a sophomoric question, especially one I’d already asked, and was now trying in a different way, hoping for an alternative response. At those times he looked exasperated. All the quotes in the Q&A sections that follow are taken from the final interview in London while others threaded through the piece are from conversations we had at other times.

EXCER PTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH TONY BLAIR, LONDON, 15 SEPTEMBER 2016 PA RT ON E

You were an incredibly popular prime minister, at the beginning. Nevertheless, you’re going to be remembered as the man who invaded Iraq. Does that feel like an injustice to you? “It doesn’t feel like an injustice. But I think over time these things play out differently. On Iraq, I think it doesn’t help anyone for me to keep relitigating it. People have their own views about it. I think in time people will come to a more measured view about why it was done, and its consequences, but who knows? I don’t spend a lot of time reflecting on that. I’m much more concentrated on what I’m doing now.”

No prime minister leaves office more popular than they came in. But the difference in tone is particularly marked in your case. Are people just wrong about you? “It’s not that people are wrong it’s that… As I’ve often said, when you decide you divide and if you take difficult decisions, you’re going to make yourself unpopular. You will become a controversial figure. But I came to the conclusion that the responsibility of leadership is to do what you think is right, irrespective of whether it’s popular, and that is a difficult thing to do, but in time I think people accept that.” I was at your press conference on the day of the Chilcot Report. As you walked in, the man behind me said you looked “shell-shocked”. Is that an accurate description of how you felt? “No, it’s not. I wasn’t. I was cognisant of the importance of the occasion and the importance of the debate. The conclusions in the Report weren’t particularly a surprise to me because through the process called Maxwellisation you get a fair idea of what’s going to be said [in advance]. But I wanted to give a complete statement on my position, which I did, and to answer any questions that people had. When I said, ‘I accept responsibility’, I did, and it’s important to do that. But I was very clear where I stood on the issue, and where I stand on it.” Were you surprised by the contents of the Report at all? Was there any of it that you didn’t know in advance? “No. There were bits of it that I profoundly disagree with but there’s nothing that particularly surprised me.” Sitting there, in Admiralty House, watching you, it struck me that you were — you are — being asked to carry the can for a lot of world events that took place at that time, in 2003, and in the aftermath of 2003, single-handedly, as though there was no one else in the room and there weren’t any other countries involved. Does it feel like that to you? That’s how the media present it: “Blair’s War”. “Yeah, it is how they present it. But I’m someone who doesn’t mind taking responsibility. And because I think the issues are so serious and they live with us still today, and because I have, frankly, a profound disagreement with the way the West is handling the whole issue of radical Islamism, I’m content to take responsibility because I believe that in time people will understand this is not a problem that we have caused, it’s a problem that we have got caught up in. And that there are going to be no easy solutions… With all the lessons of Iraq, we’ve still got a massive problem. And of course, the worst problem we have is in Syria, where we didn’t intervene at all.” Some might say the reason we didn’t intervene in Syria is because of what happened in Iraq. It

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turned Britain and the West off intervention, full stop. That’s the legacy of Iraq. “Right.” If you’d still been in power we probably would have boots on the ground in Syria. Correct? “We would certainly have been much more heavily engaged. Whether it would have needed to be our boots on the ground is another matter. But my point very simply is this: if we’d learnt the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan properly, both in respect of Libya and in respect of Syria, what we’d have realised is that the problem is not removing the regime, the problem is what happens afterwards. Because there are bad actors who come in and destabilise the situation, which is why I favoured, in respect of Syria and Libya, an attempt to negotiate with Assad and indeed with Gaddafi to get an agreed transition. However, once you have set your face against that, you’ve got to go and get them out because otherwise you’re going to end up with the situation we’ve now got in Syria, which is a catastrophe, and a shameful catastrophe in my view.” But you can’t have a war without popular support for that war. And because of what happened in the aftermath of Iraq, there isn’t popular support for intervention. It’s perceived by the public that us going in and meddling in other people’s affairs causes more grief to us and to them than not going in. “No, absolutely, that’s right.” If David Cameron had felt he had popular support he probably would have gone into Syria. “That is absolutely the analysis, but what people have got to bear in mind is that we have now had full intervention with boots on the ground, which is Iraq, partial intervention in Libya, without boots on the ground, and no intervention in Syria. And actually in only one of these countries, which is Iraq, is there a functioning government that is recognised as internationally legitimate, including by Saudi Arabia and Iran, and is actually capable of fighting terrorism. Now, maybe the Libyan government is getting there now but in Syria it’s a nightmare. So my point is very simple. I take a far longer perspective on this. It’s why I think Western policy is in the wrong place. The reason that [Western intervention, in 1999, in] Kosovo worked and in Iraq and Afghanistan it was really difficult was because of the intervention of radical Islam, either of the Shia variety promoted by Iran, or of the Sunni variety promoted by Al Qaeda, Isis and all these other groups. It’s a global problem. It’s grown up over a generation and it’s going to require a completely different and more comprehensive strategy to defeat it. I’ve written about this, but it’s very difficult for me to make those arguments and frankly a lot of people aren’t listening at the moment. But they will in the end because I’m afraid this problem’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

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Blair photographed at his office in Grosvenor Square, London, July 2016

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he sun came out for the publication of the Chilcot Report, on 6 July. At 2pm, inside Admiralty House, on Whitehall, in a square, high-ceilinged room with garish yellow wallpaper, in front of four TV cameras and perhaps 40 people — journalists, security heavies, his own team — a man, a once powerful and popular man, a man who was the future once but now seemed like the past, the past many would like to forget, was about to try to defend his name against apparently insuperable odds. Tony Blair entered stage right and placed his notes on a grey lectern. He looked nervous. Ashen, even. The atmosphere was not, as you might imagine, febrile or electric or any of that. It was quite sombre and hushed. Blair’s voice seemed hoarse at first, as he began his statement, but he didn’t reach for a glass of water. He spoke for almost 40 minutes. At times he struggled to keep his composure. He described the decision to go to war in Iraq as “the hardest, most momentous and agonising decision” he’d taken as prime minister. He said that he accepts “responsibility in full — without exception or excuse”. He admitted that the intelligence statements made at the time of going to war “turned out to be wrong”. He accepted that the aftermath of the invasion was “more hostile, protracted and bloody than we ever imagined”. And that instead of free and secure, Iraqis became instead “victim[s] of sectarian terrorism”. “For all of this,” he said, he felt “more sorrow, regret and apology and in greater measure than you can ever know”. His voice cracked on the word “sorrow”. Afterwards, some reports claimed that his eyes filled with tears. I was in the third row, close enough to him to have seen if that were the case, and it didn’t look like it to me. He certainly seemed stricken, though. There were two things, he said, that he could not say. The first was that the removal of Saddam Hussein was the cause of the terrorism in the Middle East today. The world, he said, was “a better place without Saddam”. The second was that those British soldiers who died, or who were injured, did so “in vain”. They did not, he said. He said that the Report cleared him of lying, or deliberately misrepresenting the facts, and he went on to give an account of his reasons for committing Britain to war. He rejected Chilcot’s findings that military action had not been “a last resort”. He said there was “no rush to war”. He said he had had to make a stark decision — yes to war or no to war — and that he stood by it. He asked us — the people in the room and

everyone else — to put ourselves in his shoes at the time. He asked, “with humility”, that we accept he acted “in good faith”. He went on to address the failures in planning for the aftermath of the war, the British alliance with America, the intelligence about Saddam’s chemical weapons, the credibility or otherwise of the legal case for the war, and to draw conclusions about what future leaders should learn from Iraq and Afghanistan. His message was one of hope for the Middle East. I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that this is not what most people wanted to hear. They wanted to hear him say that he had done the wrong thing by leading Britain into the invasion of Iraq. That even if he had believed it was the right thing to do at the time, for the right reasons, he now accepted that he shouldn’t have done it. There was never the remote possibility that he would do this, in my view, because he really does believe that invading Iraq was the right thing to do, and that he did it for the right reasons. When Blair had finished he said he would take questions. For almost an hour and a half he did so, becoming much more animated, raising his voice. He asked that people “respect my point of view”. He kept hoping that people would “read the report for themselves” rather than rushing to judgement — a vain hope, given the report is 2.6m words long. “It overshadows everything people think about me,” he said, at one point, of the Iraq War. “Please stop saying I was lying,” he asked, at another. He ended with a quiet, “OK, I think that’s enough. Thank you.” Exit pursued by policemen. “Poor Tony,” said one man, along from me. I don’t think he meant it entirely unkindly. Outside in the streets of Westminster, people were demonstrating against him. On TV, the sister of one of the 179 British service personnel who died in Iraq accused Blair of being a “terrorist”. The grandmother of another called him a “bloody murderer”, and the father of a third said his son had died in vain. The headlines were uniformly condemnatory. “A Monster of Delusion”, said the front page of the Daily Mail. “Blair’s Private War”, thundered The Times. “Weapon of Mass Deception”, ran The Sun’s headline. In the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland’s column was titled “Blair Damned for the Ages.” And the ordure kept being shovelled on for weeks afterwards. George Galloway’s documentary, The Killings of Tony Blair, was released shortly after the Report. Tom Bower’s biography, Broken Vows, shot up the paperback bestseller lists. In an essay of more controlled fury in the London Review of Books, Philippe Sands, the human rights lawyer, wrote that the war on Iraq and the controversies surrounding it “may come to be seen as marking the moment when the UK fell off its global perch, trust in government collapsed and the country turned inward and began to disintegrate.” Which is quite a legacy for a British prime minister. The title for Sands’ essay: “A Grand and Disastrous Deceit.”

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EXCER PTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH TONY BLAIR, LONDON, 15 SEPTEMBER 2016 PA RT T WO

I’m going to read you a paragraph from The New York Times, from 7 July, the day after Chilcot. I chose it because I imagine that The New York Times is slightly more dispassionate about you than some of the British papers. “Yeah, but they’re very hostile to any intervention.” This is the news report: “Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain went to war alongside the United States in Iraq in 2003 on the basis of f lawed intelligence that went unchallenged, a shaky legal rationale, inadequate preparation and exaggerated statements, an independent inquiry into the war concluded.” That’s their factual report of the findings of the Chilcot Report. It is a devastating summary. Do you disagree with it? “I disagree with all the summaries like that. First of all there are elements that go on the other side of the ledger in respect of all of these things. For example, people talk about flawed intelligence without talking about the final reports, which actually go into detail about what the intentions of the [Iraqi] regime were and what the future would have held if we hadn’t removed it. “And in the end, you’ve still got two very fundamental questions that you have to answer. One: What would have happened if we hadn’t [invaded]? Would the world be more safe today, or not? Secondly, for me as the British prime minister, there was a big question: were you going to side at that point with the Americans, or with those led by Russia who were opposed to the intervention? “Now, if people are going to take a different point of view, just as I’ve got to face up to the consequences of my actions, they have to face up to whatever the consequences would have been if a different decision had been taken. In the end, everything that could be said has been said on both sides of this argument and if people want to know in depth my response, they should go and read my statement on the day and they will see where I accept responsibility, where I accept that there were real failures and apologise for them, but also where I put the rationale for doing what we did and why I believe that we are actually safer today without Saddam than with him. “But people can disagree with this, and, as I said to you right at the very beginning, and I fear I’ve already disobeyed my own instruction, you can relitigate this the whole time, but most people have already made up their minds on this issue, and I accept that the opinion of people is as it

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is. There’s no point in me carrying on trying to change people’s minds.” “I will be with you, whatever.” That’s what the news led on, the words that you put in a memo to George W Bush in 2002. Do you regret saying those words now? “No, because it’s perfectly obvious from the rest of the [memo] that this was not unqualified. By the way, at the time we were trying to persuade the Americans to go to the United Nations and indeed they did go to the United Nations as a result of our persuasion. And secondly, you will find if you read the whole of the note that it’s listing all of the difficulties. So what I was saying is, ‘We’re going to be with you in dealing with this, but here’s how we’re going to have to deal with it.’ I think the very next word [after ‘with you, whatever…’] was ‘but’.” I ask about it partly because it has been, continues to be, and will always be used against you. “I promise you, if it wasn’t that it would be something else. This was the hardest decision I ever had to take, and I have never disrespected people who take a different point of view. The only thing that I ever protest about is when people say, ‘You did it for motives that you have not disclosed.’ Or, ‘You did it for nefarious reasons.’ I didn’t. I did it because I thought it was right. Whether I was right in thinking it, that’s a matter of opinion.” You have spoken of a moral component to the decision. Removing Saddam Hussein, whatever the political reasons or the security reasons, there’s a moral dimension to it. People find that difficult because that wasn’t a stated reason for doing it. You didn’t say, at the time, “Morally we ought to get rid of him.” You said, “He has weapons of mass destruction and strategically we ought to get rid of him and, also, he’s a very bad man.” Which is different. “Yeah. But the whole point about a regime that is aggressive, and if the nature of the regime is also bad, then that aggression is much more of a threat. Why is North Korea with the nuclear weapon frightening? It’s frightening because of the nature of the regime. So, actually, if you go back and look at the speeches I made before March 2003, they were all always about the nature of the regime as well, and the fact that — people forget this — when Saddam used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War where, after all, there were a million casual-

ties in that war, that was an event that wasn’t just an act of aggression regionally. Out of that came the Iranian nuclear programme. It also had a bad impact on the world. So, this is why it’s always a slightly artificial distinction.” But if we followed this line, then we ought to get rid of the regime in Iran, now. “Well, I mean, I always say this to people: you can’t get rid of every bad regime, and neither should you. But in my view the fewer of these regimes there are, the better for the world.” David Davis and Alex Salmond want the Commons to pass a motion accusing you of contempt of Parliament. What do you have to say to them? “Nothing.” Nothing at all? “No.” John Prescott believes the invasion of Iraq was wrong. What do you say to him? [Blair sighs.] He was your deputy prime minister! “I know, but John, I’m afraid, buys the whole line that has now gripped, I’m afraid, a large part of the left, which is to say all these problems of extremism come from Western foreign policy. It’s a fundamental mistake. And it ignores the history of how this radicalism has grown up and it confuses Western policy because at a certain point you start to play into their whole propaganda exercise against the West. Essentially you boost [the Islamists’] line, which is, ‘We’re having to do this because you guys are making us.’ What? We’re making you drive cars down streets trying to kill as many people as you can? I mean, why? OK, you completely disagree with what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq, but how does removing a brutal dictatorship that the people of that country most certainly do not support, giving them a United Nations-led process of election, and unlimited amounts of development aid, how is that oppressing them?” It’s not that it is oppressing them, it’s the fact that subsequently their lives were made hideous. “But therefore what we should do is identify the people doing the killing and work out how to defeat them and not say, ‘No, I’m afraid you’ve

just got to live under these brutal dictatorships because that’s just the way of the world.’” How much help has your own faith been to you during these periods when you personally have been attacked? “If you ask someone of faith then it’s always a great support because it’s what you believe. But it’s less to do with that than to do with the fact that I know in my own mind that I have done what I thought was right, and therefore I don’t… That is to say, I’m not saying I was right, either on Iraq or anything else, but…” But you do think you were right. “I don’t think it in some sort of Messianic way: ‘I’m always right.’ This sort of ridiculous parody of my thinking that’s often put forward. No, I went through a very cold, hard process of reasoning to take the decision. And I look back now and because I’m the person who took the decision, I’m also someone who reflects upon it an enormous amount. The reason I’m out in the Middle East doing all the things I am doing there is in part because of all the controversy I was involved in, in the region and around the whole issue of radical Islam.” If I had done something I believed was the right thing to do — in every sense, morally, strategically, whatever — and I received the amount of opprobrium that you have and continue to, I would be angry. Really, I would be angry. Not just a bit miffed. I would feel a tremendous sense of unfairness. “Yeah, but there’s no point… I mean, I have found throughout my life that anger is always an energy that diminishes you. It never resolves anything. Look, you’ve also got to think: it’s a great privilege to have led a country as great as Britain for 10 years. In many, many ways, I live a very purposeful and fulfilling life. I’ve got a lovely family. I count my blessings. I meet a lot of people in the work I do around the world who are so much worse off, and in so much greater difficulty than me. And I don’t mean to sound sort of pious about it, but, ultimately, especially when you’re doing these jobs under pressure, you do go through the furnace of it and you come out different.” Tougher? “Tougher and also more balanced, with a greater equilibrium in your temperament. You realise that

‘ FR A N K LY, IT’S A TR AGEDY FOR BR ITISH POLITICS IF TH E CHOICE BE F OR E T H E C OU N T RY I S A C ON S E RVAT I V E G OV E R N M E N T G OI NG F OR A H A R D BR E X IT A N D A N U LT R A-L E F T L A BOU R PA RT Y T H AT BE LI EV E S IN A SET OF POLICIES THAT TAKES US BACK TO THE SIXTIES’

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sometimes there’s an anger that can give you purpose, and there’s an anger that can just eat you up. And that anger that gives you purpose is when we were in Africa last week and you still see all that poverty and you think, ‘We should be doing something about that.’ That’s a positive energy. The anger that says, ‘People are treating me really unfairly’? I mean, look, the Chilcot Inquiry, by the way, not that you’d know it, found that we had acted in good faith throughout, as did the previous five inquiries.” “In good faith” is a phrase that you use a lot. The thing is, people think, “Well, I understand acting in good faith. But if it was the wrong thing to do it’s still the wrong thing to do.” “And that’s fair enough. But a lot of the opprobrium is around integrity, which isn’t fair.” People think you acted in bad faith. “As I say, it’s a difficult situation with me with the British media and it will continue, probably, to be. Because I think there are other political reasons why my type of politics at the moment is not where the mood is.” Why would that make the press particularly poisonous in your case? “Because they don’t like the centre.” Because it helps the press to have a polarised politics? “Yes. Look, I believe there are very powerful people on the right in the media and elsewhere who want to turn British politics essentially to the Eighties.” Because it helps to sell newspapers? “But also because it helps to drive a right-wing agenda. What you had in the Eighties was a Labour Party that thought it was principled but in fact was unelectable, and a Conservative Party that could pursue its position strongly because there wasn’t really the prospect of being knocked out by the opposition.” Are you going to say who these right-wing people are who are driving that agenda? “Not for the moment.” Why would you not want to say that? “There are some battles I want to fight and some I don’t, at the moment.” You mentioned your family. All this must take a toll on them. They didn’t choose to be at the centre of these controversies. It would be easier for them if you were perceived as a more benign figure. “Yes, that’s true. On the other hand, by some sort of good fortune, the children seem incredibly balanced with it all. We’re just very lucky.”

It must have been difficult to give them a normal upbringing? “Yeah. Obviously it’s an unusual life on one level, but I think I was the first British prime minister to send my children to state schools and we were lucky to find good state schools in London, and I think going there helped because they mixed with a broad range of children and they seem, touch wood, to be fine.”

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wanda: a small, lush, landlocked country in east Africa, traumatised by the savagery of its recent past and ruled by a ruthless moderniser, a former rebel leader who has fast-tracked his nation from what was, 20 years ago, close to a failed state to one of Africa’s economic success stories. Kigali: a sun-blessed, orderly, clean capital city — almost pathologically clean, as if the city itself has OCD — of ridges and valleys, most thrillingly navigated as a helmeted passenger on one of the motorbike taxis that wriggle through the traffic, buzzing like mosquitoes. It’s May, and Tony Blair is in town for the World Economic Forum on Africa in his role as founder and patron of the Africa Governance Initiative. Funded by rich donors (at various times: Bill Gates, Lord Sainsbury), this is a development charity with a difference: rather than offering aid, in the traditional sense, its operatives are embedded inside the government — the president’s office, various ministries of state — to help implement policy. They are, one of them tells me over a drink, “all about getting shit done”. Blair is a big man in Rwanda. He is, according to a student I chat to in a sports arena in Kigali, while we wait for Blair to arrive and bowl a cricket ball for charity, “one of the best friends of our president”. (“One thing about being a known face is, you might as well use it,” Blair says, when I ask why he still bothers with the comedy photo calls.) The President is Paul Kagame. He came to power in 2000, six years after the genocide that killed 900,000 people in 100 days, and he is one of Blair’s longest standing developing world partners. A sinuous, studious-looking man, Kagame has made a great success of Rwanda’s economy, but his administration and armed forces are accused of human rights abuses at home, as well as of brutal military incursions into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Blair likes it here. He likes the energy. “This is an amazing country,” he tells me. “It’s a place on the move.” I join him and his team for breakfast at the brand new Marriott Hotel, where he is staying. We are close to the convention centre, inside a temporary “red zone”. To get to him one

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must pass through road blocks and multiple security checks. Many of the continent’s leaders have gathered here, along with Western diplomats and investors in Africa from around the world. During his time here, Blair has meetings on such topics as import substitution, energy policy, cement production. (It’s only rock ’n’ roll but he likes it.) On all of these matters, members of the AGI team are working with the Rwandans to help them, to use the deathless management speak, “deliver on their targets”. “What is the essential thing to recognise about the world?” Blair asks me, as we sit in the shade on a terrace at the back of the hotel. “It’s that the countries that govern themselves sensibly, as opposed to those that have pursued daft ideologies or become corrupted, do better. If they govern well, there’s no limit to what they can do. But the hardest thing is to get things done. How do you actually have a plan, prioritise and deliver it?” As ever, Blair is not thinking small: “I want to change the way we do development.” When he says “we” he means “the world”. “I want to influence global policy on this. That’s one thing you can do when you leave office: you can influence.” I watch him tour a high-tech lab where students are learning about 3D printing. (“Smart guys!” Blair says to me.) I am introduced to a minister in the Rwandan government, who tells me how important Blair is, and says he knows nothing of his reputation back home. I’m not surprised Blair wanted me to see all this: his AGI team is made up of smart, committed, inspiring young people, from all over the world, who have come here to try to do good. One night, while the boss is in meetings, I am invited to a team dinner at a Chinese restaurant. One of the AGI staffers asks me my sense of the public opinion of Blair in Britain. After a pause to consider how much I want to put a dampener on a very convivial supper, I decide to be honest: “Erm… they don’t like him.” There is much laughter. “Well, we know that,” says someone. I’d misheard the question. What they were curious to know was how much people knew of his work now, and what they thought of it, not if he was personally popular. They had no illusions on that score. I told them that I felt most people had no idea, really, of what he was up to, me included. What little we think we know — he makes lots of money advising dodgy foreign administrations — we are suspicious of. The work of the AGI, too, is not without its PR challenges: Paul Kagame’s record on human rights, for example. I asked Blair how he decided that, despite the allegations, the Rwandan President is a man worth working with? “If the country hadn’t changed for the better in the last eight or nine years — and even his worst critics admit that it has — then I wouldn’t be here,” Blair said. “If I didn’t believe he was ultimately someone with the good of his country

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Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu photographed for Esquire in Netanyahu’s office, Jerusalem, 11 September 2016

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in his heart, I wouldn’t be here. If I thought the people of the country didn’t want him to stay in office, I wouldn’t be here. If I thought he was a bad guy, I wouldn’t be here. “I’m totally in favour of the people who focus on human rights in countries like this,” he said. “My purpose here is to try and help, and I’m not able to do that if I don’t think the leadership of the country is well intentioned. That’s not to say I’m oblivious to these issues. I will always raise those issues with the leadership, here and elsewhere.” Had he raised the issue of human rights with Kagame? “Of course I have,” he said, “and he, by the way, will answer them very strongly, and say who is behind [the allegations]. To be honest, it is difficult for me to judge.” He made the comparison with China. “There are completely legitimate criticisms of that system,” he said, “but it is in everyone’s interest that there is a stable evolution there.” Another accusation thrown at Blair is that his commercial work has at times become entangled with his philanthropic or not-for-profit work. One of Tony Blair Associates’ offers was, as he puts it, “linking investors with opportunities”. He knows, because of his travels and his contacts, which projects in the developing world need funding, and he knows private investors who might want to invest. “We don’t do that in Africa, not in countries where we are working [on a not-for-profit basis].” If a delegate at the World Economic Forum were to approach him now, in the hotel lobby, and say he wished to invest in development projects in Rwanda, would he connect them to a potentially profitable — and worthy — operation? “You can’t do it when you are embedded in the president’s office,” he said. “That would lead you into a conflict.” I asked him about the numerous allegations, over the years, that have been made about the blurring of distinctions between his philanthropic and his commercial work. “I cannot tell you how much bullshit there is,” he said. “We can literally take it allegation by allegation. It’s extremely important. The fact is, my sources of income were from the consultancies that have nothing to do with [his work in Rwanda, for example].” Throughout these conversations, Blair was companionable and relaxed. As well as answering them, he asked questions — How’s the magazine going? What have I made of my time with him so far? What else am I working on? Have I had a chance to get out and see the country? — and he encouraged people to talk to me. (Unsurprisingly, he didn’t introduce me to anyone who said terrible things about him, but then those are not difficult to find; that part I could do without him.) At the Marriott, our talk turned to more personal matters. Cherie had accompanied him to Kigali. I wondered if they had found time to enjoy themselves while they were here. Could they go out for dinner, or just have a look around the city? Continued on page 192

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N O S E -T O -TA I L E AT E R

Fergus Henderson IN T E RV I EW BY T OM PA R K E R BOW L E S

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ergus Henderson is an unlikely gastronomic god. The proprietor of the legendary St John restaurant in London, and patron saint of umbles (“It would be disingenuous to the animal,” he writes in Nose to Tail Eating, “not to make the most of the whole beast”), he is modest, softly spoken and splendidly eccentric, the pinstriped paragon of the truly civilised chef. Not that he actually cooks in his restaurants any more. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1998, the tremor down the left side of his body made it impossible for him to man the stoves. “Parkinson’s, small kitchens, knives — a bit dangerous,” he once said with typical understatement. But following revolutionary deep brain stimulation, the tremors were tamed and are now all but imperceptible. He trained as an architect, and though he has no formal culinary background, he worked at Smith’s in Covent Garden and The Globe in Notting Hill before opening The French House Dining Room in Soho in 1992. St John in Smithfield followed in 1994. We sit down there, by the bar, the conversation oiled by a glass of Fernet Branca (“It has magical properties! You can follow it through your system. It hits the liver and soothes it… then the stomach, then the kidneys. As it makes its journey, it improves the humours. A miracle!”) and a fat slice of seed cake.

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ESQUIRE: What were you doing 25 years ago? FERGUS HENDERSON: I was cooking at The French House, with my wife Margot. A happy time! Unlike other chefs, when we had a row in the kitchen we could kiss and make up, which was very handy. When I left to set up St John, Margot carried on. Now she has Rochelle Canteen, so we both have our own restaurants. ESQ: How did St John come about? FH: The space was available, it was waved under my nose and proved irresistible! It suited my thoughts of how a restaurant should be. It is hard to know whether I would have set up St John if we had not found this space…

Chris Winter / Solo Syndication

ESQ: The St John diaspora is wide and wonderful. What do you think they learned while cooking with you? FH: The confidence to follow their noses, to trust their instincts — it’s realising that simple is not easy. ESQ: The prose of the menu matches the minimalist elegance of the walls and can now be found in restaurants everywhere. Was that the intention? FH: Sort of! The idea of the hooks on the walls is that as you hang your coats, you decorate the walls. And we don’t allow music, as the glug of wine and the chatter is the music. When we serve the roast bone marrow and parsley salad, we present the elements, which you can construct as you please. It’s self-assembly

and evolution. In a similar way, the simplicity of the wording on the menu launches you into a conversation with the waiter… they are all springboards. ESQ: St John is always described as “modern British”. Yet there’s a clear Italian influence, too. The opposite of “meat and three veg”. FH: Certainly! But firstly — it is not modern British, it is permanent British! It is not an olde-worlde, rose-tinted view of the past, nor is it plucking senselessly from around the world. I was brought up on Marcella Hazan and that Italian way of cooking used to be how everyone cooked — cook what is near to you and in season. Nature writes your menu. ESQ: You’re known as the godfather of new British cooking. Is that a description that fills you with glee? Or gloom. FH: I don’t think about it. But if it helps to spread the word, then I’m happy. Don Fergus! ESQ: Is British food in fine fettle? FH: Here’s my cabbage theory. There’s a smugness to London, we think we are the culinary centre of the world. But if you go out for the evening with trendy young Italians, they will spend the entire night talking about radicchio. Now, when broody young Londoners can spend a whole night talking about cabbage, then we will have really cracked it. ESQ: Lunch or dinner? FH: Lunch, of course! The body is in perfect condition for lunch. One has an apéritif, it starts a chain reaction and everything collides in the perfect moment. It spells potential — anything can happen after lunch! Whereas at dinner you are tired, and it forms a full stop to the day. ESQ: Does the use of mobile phones irk you? FH: Yes! It is suggesting that [people] are being inconvenienced by lunch, which is entirely the wrong attitude, not the way to approach lunch at all. People only like the smell of their own farts, apparently. In the same way, people seem to like the sound of their own ringtones. ESQ: Strange shaped plates? Slate? Bread served in flat caps? FH: Don’t do it! A round white plate is a perfect thing to eat off, whereas a square plate with an “arrangement” at its centre is so uncomfortable, as is slate. Sometimes these things are born out of a restaurant’s desperation — they distract from the food, which I feel is often the intention. ESQ: Favourite restaurants? FH: In London, Sweetings. Their plaice, chips and peas with a bottle of chablis is a perfect

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Fergus Henderson photographed at his St John restaurant by Dan BurnForti, London, 2014

lunch. La Bombeta, or Bar La Bomba, in Barcelona. Everything’s cooked with lard and garlic, which is brilliant, because lard and garlic are wonderful. Trattoria Sostanza in Florence, a temple to grilling meat. Of all the cuts, the beef steak Florentine is my favourite, a joyous thing from a white cow farmed in a valley somewhere in Chianti. Usually you have this very rare and will be chewing for hours, but it is just the right amount of chew. It’s a perfect piece of meat. In Paris, Chez Georges. ESQ: Five ingredients you love? FH: Parsley, garlic, lemon juice, bread, bacon. ESQ: Any views on the perfect martini? FH: I’m quite particular about my martinis! Always Tanqueray (but not No10). Painfully dry, painfully cold, and straight up. But do not make the mistake of having more than one before lunch — two means that you become too relaxed and slip too easily into the third — disaster! But it’s tricky to resist, because martinis are like breasts. One is not enough, three are too many, two are perfect.

The dish that’s been on the St John menu for 22 years Tom Parker Bowles on Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad “Crisp, slightly charred toast, slathered with wobbling, discreetly beefy marrow, spiked with shards of salt. The taste buds swoon. But just when it all gets too overwhelmingly luscious, in rides that parsley salad, studded with capers and slivers of shallots, to cut through any excess heft. It’s one of the world’s great dishes, a masterpiece of taste and texture that thrills and soothes with equal aplomb.”

THE CUDDLIFICATION OF GOAL CELEBR ATIONS

Like the Mobot, today’s footballers prefer a sappier sign-off

1993 The beers by Paul Merson

efore I interviewed the writer Malcolm Gladwell for this magazine in 2013, I’d never thought especially deeply about Mo Farah. He was a good, perhaps great, athlete, an affable but not outlandishly charismatic guy with an idiotic signature celebration: the Mobot. Thanks to its inventor Clare Balding, the 33-year-old Somali-born Briton now not only had to outrun the best Kenyans and Ethiopians but choreograph a naff pose as he crossed the line, like one member of the Village People stood up by the remainder of the sextet. But then Gladwell had a counter-intuitive way of looking at Farah: he was not so much an athlete as a Jedi. Gladwell had met him once briefly and Farah had made a strong impression. “I shook his hand and chatted to him and it was clear he was the alpha male,” Gladwell recalled. “He just has a per-

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sonality that seemed to exert itself on matters. He dictates the terms of races to people who are faster than him, which I find fascinating and hilarious.” Gladwell was right. Throughout his career, certainly since 2011, Farah has consistently beaten opponents who have superior personal bests. It shouldn’t make any sense. Gladwell picked one event, the 5,000m final in the 2012 London Olympics — though it applies to most events Farah takes part in — and called it both “an act of collective suicide by the African runners” and “the strangest race I’ve ever seen”. On paper, Farah should not have won, so how did he triumph so convincingly? “I don’t know,” said Gladwell, shaking his head. “He’s the big dog, they just do what the big dog says.” We think of athletics as the ultimate physical test, but Farah is proof that it is really a battle of competing psychologies. Psychology in sport typ-

1999 Cocaine by Robbie Fowler

RUNNER

Mo Farah

2005 Loyalist flute by Paul Gascoigne

BY TIM LEWIS

2006 Robot by Peter Crouch

2010 Chicken by Kevin Nolan

2010 Heart by Gareth Bale

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ically means a manager such as José Mourinho saying silly things to inspire footballers with IQs similar to the numbers on the back of their shirts. What Farah does, though, is much more subtle. Take his tactic of often starting races very slowly. It’s a really bad idea to give your opponents a 40m head start in an Olympic final. But it works for Farah because: a) it lets his rivals know that he is so supremely confident of winning that he can afford to just jog along for a bit; and b) Farah knows that, like any good horror film, it’s what you can’t see that really messes with your mind. I got Farah all wrong. He’s a nerveless assassin, and his paralysing presence has now earned him four Olympic gold medals. He will probably never set a world record, but you would put your money on him every time in a head-to-head. But I do stand by one thing: the Mobot is a terrible celebration.

MAIL MAN

Martin Clarke BY RICHARD BENSON

Mo Farah clocks Ethiopia’s Dejen Gebremeskel before winning gold in the 5,000m, London, August 2012

Martin Clarke, Mail Online publisher, heads the world’s mostread English language newspaper website, photographed in 2012

o c k y, brash, shor t-tempered, worka holic a nd unashamedly rightwing, Martin Clarke was never going to be the kind of media figure regularly invited on to Newsnight to trade purring witticisms with Evan Davis. He has, however, been Britain’s most influential newspaperman of the past quarter century, an achievement all the more remarkable given that he doesn’t actually work on a newspaper. Clarke, in his early fifties, is the man behind Mail Online, the world’s most-read English language newspaper website. It was launched by the Daily Mail in 2003,

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but has been controlled by Clarke, first as editor then as publisher, since 2006, and its innovations — the sidebar of shame, the green and red arrows, the huge pictures — were his. Its most important single lasting legacy will be its demonstration of the power of what media analysts call “guilty pleasure browsing”. Before Mail Online, editors of quality newspapers worried about featuring too much content that seemed trashy; nowadays, they accept that if you want reader numbers, you have to recognise that even “quality” readers apparently like looking at Kim Kardashian’s arse, even if they

>

The stuff we made

M A R T I N C L A R K E Continued…

Clarke is Britain’s most influential newspaperman of the past quarter century, all the more remarkable given that he doesn’t actually work on a newspaper

1994

Wind-up clock radio

‘Jack’ light/chair

(Trevor Baylis)

(Tom Dixon)

IDESIGNER

do feel a bit sullied afterwards. Clarke, a Kent grammar school boy known for his black trenchcoat, shouting, smoking and signature instruction to reporters: “I want every cough and spit,” is unapologetic about chasing big numbers (Mail Online currently has more than 200m monthly visitors). Some commentators feel there is too big a difference between the tone of the newspaper and its website, but he insists the site embodies Mail values of sound, brave and investigative reporting. Some will regard that claim with scepticism, but meeting Clarke, as I did for Esquire in 2011, there is no doubt about his sense of leading a moral crusade for the ordinary and unheard against the establishment. He can seem a bit mad, but you have to admire his conviction. Of course, the shortcomings are many and wellknown: besides the typos and dubious stories, there have been gaffes like the obviously pre-written and mistaken account of the Amanda Knox trial, published in error when the verdict was misunderstood. More recently, Clarke has had to defend Mail Online against accusations of racism in its coverage of immigration and explain the surprising content-sharing deal with China’s People’s Daily. It’s true that in some people — the sort of people Clarke detests — such things make him an unsuitable candidate for inclusion in a list like this. However, we are talking here about the men who have shaped our culture, and there seems little denying that as well as amassing an awful lot of readers, Martin Clarke’s Mail Online has been to the first decades of the 21st century what Kelvin MacKenzie’s Sun was to the Eighties, and Hugh Cudlipp’s Daily Mirror was to the Fifties and early Sixties, in being the news platform that most closely captures the mood and tone of the country’s mainstream.

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1991

Jonathan Ive B Y JOH N N Y DAV I S

he design critic Stephen Bayley once a sked people to name the most valuable Englishman on Earth. Wayne Rooney? Colin Firth? Neither of them, he argued, could touch Jonathan “Jony” Ive, chief design officer of Apple Inc. Age: 49; net worth: £100m — though, as the designer of the MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iPod, iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch and Apple’s entire iOS operating system (10th iteration out now!), his true value to the multinational

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technology company may be more accurately described as priceless. Apple is, as no one needs reminding, the world’s most successful company. Not just now, but ever. Yes, Apple has had better years than this one — the first dip in iPhone sales since it launched in 2007, the sneaking suspicion no one’s bought an Apple Watch, the tax bill — but when your products are owned by 600m people around the world you’re still doing OK. Not just owned, but loved. Even people who dislike the company’s schtick, even Windows-centric Applephobes (you

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Great moments in British invention

1996

2000

2003

2003

2012

Dolly the sheep

The London Eye

The Gherkin

Beagle 2

London Olympic torch

(University of Edinburgh/PPL Therapeutics)

(Marks Barfield Architects)

(Norman Foster)

(Colin Pillinger)

(Barber & Osgerby)

The Guardian

Jonathan Ive photographed by Graham Turner, June 2003

fools!) have had their lives changed by Apple. Touch screens, digital music, apps, FaceTime, every photo in our pockets, swiping, curved edges, The Cloud, the very idea we can run our lives 24-7 through a 4.7in piece of aluminium and glass — Apple might not have done it first (though in many cases it did) but it did it best. Then everyone copied them. So you don’t have to be sleeping on a fold-down chair outside an Apple Store to be an Apple convert. We all are. Jony Ive oversaw this revolution. Jony Ive from Newcastle Polytech-

nic! Jony Ive from Chingford! And no matter how big Apple gets for its boots, that feels good, right? You might think Steve Jobs was a nut, you might not like the look of Tim Cook. But the quiet, publicity-shy man-boy with the shaved head and the navy T-shirt — he’s someone we can all feel good about. That there is some corner of Apple Campus, One Infinite Loop, Cupertino that is forever England. Ive has a gift for dreaming up beautiful-looking objects that are simple to use. His priority is the user not the gadget. As anyone with

kids will tell you, his products are so instinctive that a two-year-old can use them (two-year-olds love to use them). “Making the solution seem so completely inevitable and obvious, so uncontrived and natural — it’s so hard,” he has said. Much like his products, Ive lives his life tastefully and unobtrusively. He is the best and most imitated product designer in the world, but he does not strut about like Philippe Starck nor wear ridiculous clothes like Karim Rashid. He lives quietly in San Francisco with his wife Heather, whom he met at school before he went on to study

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industrial design at Newcastle Poly (he was exceptional enough that part of his student portfolio was exhibited at London’s Design Museum), and their twin boys. He’s so backwards about coming forwards that his friend, the DJ John Digweed, had known him for ages before realising he didn’t just work for Apple’s design department, he ran it. After working for a design consultancy in London, Ive joined Apple in 1992. He shared Steve Jobs’ vision of creating a digital hub that would hold everything we cared about in one place. Jobs was a hero to some, a villain to others, a complicated character, as they say. Ive, partly through being so lowkey, never inspired anything other than devotion. His products did the talking. But last year, he let The New Yorker follow him about in the run-up to the launch of the Apple Watch. That profile ran to 17,000 words. It covered a lot of ground. But the Ive who emerged was as like you and me as we suspected (that is, as like you and me as someone who changed the world can be). There’s a Banksy picture in his office. His bookshelf features 100 Superlative Rolex Watches. He loves cars (Apple’s ‘”Project Titan” is supposedly a car). Of course, none of these things makes you a world-class designer. But they do make you our kind of world-class designer.

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Grayson Perry photographed at home in London by Daniel Stier, September 2016

POTTER, CROSS-DRESSER

Grayson Perry Like most middle-class people in Islington we have a cleaner. Our house is not a testament to tidiness.

INTERVIEW BY BEN MITCHELL At school I was quite natural at athletics but my stepfather encouraged it so therefore I had to give it up as a “Fuck you” to him. here’s an illusion about happiness that it is ecstasy. It’s really the regular stuff — like having a nice place to work, walking the dog, a reasonable amount of beer — that makes most people happy. It’s not swimming with dolphins or paragliding.

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I’ve got an angle on most things. Dressing up in women’s clothes. The Turner Prize. The relationship of pottery to art. They’re bits of ground that I’ve trodden into a quagmire. There are two metrics that artists use: price at auction and visitor figures. I’m quite interested in both. I grew up in Essex. My dad was a skilled electrical engineer. My mother was angry. That was her job, I think. She slaved her guts out for my stepfather. I didn’t have a good relationship with any of them. My father left when I was four because my mother had an affair with the milkman, who turned into my stepfather. He was a violent thug. My mother was quite disturbed herself and incredibly volatile.

People often think that if you’re a transvestite then you have some unique insight into women. Bollocks. You’ve got a unique insight into being a man who likes putting on dresses. Artists don’t live on some weird, ethereal other planet. It’s nine to five. You’ve got to get stuff done. I’m married to a psychotherapist. You learn quite a lot being married to a psychotherapist. If you don’t like cycling uphill then you don’t like cycling. I used to be much more attached to the ups than the downs, but recently I’ve started to get more excited by the downs. My wife once asked someone who I go riding with, “What’s he like when he’s out on his mountain bike?” He said, “Well, you wouldn’t know he had a family.” Most encounters I have, I start aggressive and then I warm up. I find that’s the best trajectory because you don’t make that mistake of being overfamiliar with someone who turns out to be a twat.

If I really want to have a good laugh I’ll watch You’ve Been Framed!. Fucking brilliant. Harry Hill just transformed it.

There have been very brief periods in my adult life when I’ve had short hair but this particular cut is normally quite a precise bob.

My man wardrobe is like many men’s wardrobes. It’s what my wife buys me plus kit. Motorcycling kit. Sports kit. Work kit. You know, functional clothes.

I reach more people with one television programme than I would with 10 exhibitions. I remember once I said to the commissioning editor of one of our programmes, “Oh yeah, that exhibition went really well — 120,000 people went to it.” She said, “I’d get the sack if those were my viewing figures.”

I want to be one of those old ladies that does not give a shit. They’re good. No fear of honesty. All drugs have a character that they impose on you. It’s Mr Cokey Man and Mr Stoney Man! We all know what those people are like, don’t we? I haven’t taken any illegal drugs for decades. I’m Mr Occasional Pint-y man. I am known to doodle when I’m two or three pints in. It’s quite useful to have a disinhibitor, but not to be paralytic. I wear Chanel Bleu. I haven’t got a really good sense of smell but people always compliment me on it so it must be OK. I used to love dancing. There was a point where I would have gone for Strictly but I think I’m too old now. My body’s a bit crook.

Do I believe in God? No. Life is meaningless. I’m happy with that, though. Most creative people’s job is to make meaning. That’s the role, isn’t it? To give people something to attach to somehow, to give a bit of traction in the abstract soup of being around. If you’re unhappy and you’ve got things that aren’t working for you then talk to someone who might help you. Most people get therapy when they’re in their thirties; that’s when things come home to roost. I started it when I was 38, so quite late really. I was angry. Depressed. I had many bad habits that my wife loved pointing out to me, all the classic ones: projection, transference, bad communication skills. I went for six years.

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I find more interest in the British Museum than I do in the Tate. Everything has its role in the shaping of your life. It would probably have been quite handy to have been less self-conscious when I was younger. I wasn’t particularly shy but you don’t know how good you are. I’ve got a better idea now. I was pretty serious about joining the Army; I was being interviewed for Sandhurst when I was 16. I was in the cadets. Riding on tanks and running around in the dark pretending to be soldiers, we did all that a lot. It was fun. Naively, I didn’t associate it with the chaos and horror of war. I’d have been a bad fit for the Army. I probably would have gone on the rampage. After something appears novel it begins that journey to cliché quite rapidly. Such as? Anything with the word “hipster” in front of it. Tattoos are the classic one. They’re cruel because they stick around. It’s like having bell bottoms welded to your legs. I have a daughter. She’s 24 now. I was very wary of myself as a parent at the beginning because I had such a lot of baggage. It’s easy to be a bad parent. If you do it properly — you pay the kid attention and give love and time and effort — then it’s hard. The gym is awful. I can’t bear swimming in a pool either. It’s like, the world’s out there! The first question I was asked when I won the Turner Prize was, “Are you a serious artist or are you a loveable character?” I said, “Both.” If you’re going to spend all your working hours doing something you’ve got to be serious about it but there is no territory that I won’t joke about. You’re allowed to be wrong. You’re allowed to be flexible. You’re allowed to not know. A friend of mine once said, “Perfectionism is unloveable.” I think that’s true. Very often we like things because they are flawed or not quite right. I’m on a constantly improving curve. I’m realising in my later life that it’s nice being nice.

PETROLHEAD

Harry Potter

Jeremy Clarkson

BY MIR ANDA COLLINGE

BY JEREMY LANGMEAD

eremy Cl a rk s on is grumpy, funny, unfashionable, likes cars, stirring up trouble and once hit Piers Morgan. Quite a lot to like there. He can also be a bit of a twat. He hit his producer while filming Top Gear because there wasn’t a hot dinner waiting for him back at the hotel, and is friends with our very own Uncle Dysfunctional, AA Gill (always a concern). He is also very, very successful. Top Gear, when he was at the helm, was one of the most successful shows in the world, his columns in The Sun and The Sunday Times are the reason many buy those newspapers, and whenever he collates his middle-aged mutterings into a hardback book it tops the best-seller lists. More often than not, Clarkson manages to be rude without being all-out offensive, politically incorrect without being abusive, and, annoyingly for his detractors, often makes a lot

J

hen describing your day job as a magazine journalist to today’s adolescents, there are few anecdotes that raise even a glimmer of approbation. Jumping in puddles with Justin Timberlake? Wrong Justin. Sunbathing with Kate Winslet? Booooring. Watching Ken Loach direct? Does he even have a YouTube channel? Going on the set of Harry Potter with Daniel Radcliffe? Now we’re talking. Of course, such was the security around the filming of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 that I wasn’t allowed to describe what I saw. However, I’m going to risk Warner Bros’ retroactive wrath by revealing that the actor who played Draco Malfoy was actually a very nice bloke and that it was clear some kind of magic was happening. Since Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997, the character has cast a spell that cannot be broken. His creator JK Rowling now has a net worth estimated at more than $1bn. The main novel and film series may have ended, but the spin-off books and movies and the plays and the theme parks and the bus tours and the collectors’ edition wands will probably be churned out forever. And so it has come to pass that this scrawny, bespectacled, boy wizard projects more about the British man to the wider world than any debonair secret agent ever has: an unprepossessing, milk-fed geek who somehow holds his own against superior forces through a mixture of ingenuity, hard graft and high-powered backers, and who nurtures a Messiah complex that isn’t nearly as well-disguised as he thinks it is.

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Daniel Radcliffe stars as Harry Potter in the 2001 film adaptation of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

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of sense: he’s good at bursting the balloons of pomposity released by the wafflers of Westminster. Despite being worth millions, and living in Chipping Norton, he still manages to echo the views of the common man with a curmudgeonly charm and skill that has always evaded the likes of Richard Littlejohn or, more recently, Katie Hopkins. In fact, the 56-year-old is something of a hero: over the summer his yacht rescued four men off the coast of Mallorca who’d accidentally been blown a mile out to sea on their lilos. Clarkson’s greatest achievement, however, and the reason he is on this list, is that here’s a Genesis-loving petrolhead, with appalling taste in jeans, and a face that could freeze Medusa, who’s convinced us all that he’s just like us but funny and on the telly. The reality is far from that: he’s a modern-day, multimedia mogul. And if you actually meet him, a rather charming one, too.

The fictional British males who have defined us to the outside world No, they definitely don’t think we’re James Bond

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Alan Partridge Self-important blowhard and soft rock enthusiast

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Getty | Starstock

WIZARD

Jeremy Clarkson in a Fiat 500 Bambina, 1993

David Brent

Mr Bean

Sherlock

Nigel Farage

Small man with twin sweat and authority problems

Primarily communicates through his nostrils

Unintelligible clever clogs. Likes frock coats

The ultimate comic creation. Wait, whaaa…?

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Left: Baron Waheed Alli behind the scenes on Channel Four’s The Big Breakfast, London, March 1999

Right: Nick Jones photographed by Alex Sarginson, London, 2015

MOGUL, POLITICO

Baron Waheed Alli BY MICHAEL HOLDEN HOST ake the modern world with its angsts, woes and endless, urgent, trolley dash of threats perceived and tangible; then consider, “who might save us?” A superhero for civilisation’s terminal stage would need a hell of a backstory and considerable powers, but that wouldn’t be enough. You’d want some special quality, something intangible but somehow clear. Let’s say you figured all that out and then you went into a room of movie executives and pitched this character…

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You: “OK, so, he’s a blue-collar kid, his parents a nurse and a mechanic, and he leaves school to look after his family when his dad splits, and, here’s the thing, he’s not white.” Execs: “Cool, that seems contemporary. Where is he from?” You: “Well, he’s British. His folks are from the Caribbean region. He’s Muslim, raised in south London.” Execs: “Muslim?” You: “Yeah, but here’s another thing, he’s Muslim, and he’s gay.” Execs: “Your hero is a gay Muslim?” You: “Totally. And he comes from no money and he goes out to earn for his family and he makes like a fortune in media and business.” Execs: “How?” You: “He and his friends…” Execs: “Super-friends?” You: “Kinda. Well, Bob Geldof. They make these epochal, era-defining

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TV shows like The Word and The Big Breakfast and they have the rights to other world-conquering formats like Survivor, and they make a ton of money and then our guy enters politics.” Execs: “Our gay Muslim guy?” You: “Exactly. Our working class, gay, Muslim guy enters politics in this bullshit neo-liberal era of self-serving corruption, and despite his proximity to some terrifying figures…” Execs: “Supervillains?” You: “Blair, Murdoch, Cameron…” Execs: “Wow!” You: “Bear with me… he actually does some honourable stuff and somehow stays above all the shit.” Execs: “People won’t buy this…” You: “He’s a Labour life peer in the House of Lords.” Execs: “So, he’s a costumed, gay, left-leaning, Muslim, millionaire superhero?” Junior exec: “He’s like a Bruce Wayne figure in a Bruce Jenner world!” Senior exec: “Get out.” You: “And he stands up against the government when they try to dismantle the BBC, and he’ll say that everyone is corrupt at every level and that the only people getting nicked for actual theft are the poorest and — I think he might be the one…” Execs: “Does he have a name?” You: “Waheed Alli aka Baron Alli of Norbury. You realise that this is a true story?” Execs (exiting): “We’ll let you know.”

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Nick Jones BY MIR ANDA COLLINGE

iven what Soho House has become, it is hard to remember that it started as an actual house. In Soho. In 1995, Nick Jones was offered a space above his Café Boheme on the corner of Greek Street in London. As the door was too small for it to be a restaurant, he decided to turn it into a private members’ club. “I wanted to create somewhere where a creative soul is valued more than anything else; a relaxed, ‘home-from-home’ environment,” Jones, 53, tells Esquire. “I didn’t know if there was going to be a market there. I hoped there would be.” His hopes appear well founded. Since it opened, Soho House has become the place to work, play and

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NICK JONES’ FOUR COMM ANDMENTS O F PA R T Y-T H R O W I N G

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Corners of foreign fields that are forever Soho

6 3 22

10

1 15

5

London

Camera Press | Getty

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. languidly flop about. In the daytime, members sit on squishy sofas drinking coffee and pretending to type on laptops while surreptitiously checking out who else is “in”. At night, it’s where actors, musicians, artists, writers — and anyone with aspirations to be any of the aforementioned — come to see and be seen. Many a beautiful friendship has started in Soho House; many a messy night has ended there. And when we say the place, we mean many places, because the Soho House group has begun an empirical creep across the globe. There are 17 clubs around the world, and every time a new one opens there is a frisson of excitement: a Soho House in your town (or in the case of Soho Farmhouse,

1. Be organised. You want it to be relaxed but not sloppy.

a nearby field) means that it’s on the scenester map. There’s an imminent House in Barcelona, then openings in Amsterdam, White City in west London, the reopening of Greek Street, and a restaurant and club complex, The Ned, in the City of London. There are plans to open in North America and Asia. This may make Jones’ proprietorial attention to detail — “I make sure I sit in every chair and lie in every bed,” he says — a little harder to pull off. But the founder is undaunted by his little house in Soho’s increasingly global reach. “If you’re British and you make it abroad, it’s a pretty good feeling.” Soho House Barcelona opens on 17 October; sohohousebarcelona.com

2. A party needs to feel busy; no one wants to walk into an empty room.

3. Good lighting is important; you want people to feel comfortable.

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Soho House 40 Greek Street, 1995 Babington House, 1998 Electric House, 2002 Soho House New York, 2003 High Road House (Chiswick), 2005 Shoreditch House, 2007 Soho House Berlin, 2010 Soho Beach House (Miami), 2010 Soho House West Hollywood, 2010 Little House (Mayfair), 2012 Soho House Toronto, 2012 Soho House Chicago, 2014 Soho House Istanbul, 2015 Soho Farmhouse, 2015 Soho House 76 Dean Street, 2015 Ludlow House, 2016 Little Beach House Malibu, 2016 Soho House Barcelona, 2016 Mumbai, 2017 Amsterdam, 2017 Soho House 40 Greek Street, reopens 2017 22. White City, 2017/18

2 20 7 14

11 12 9 17

4 16

18

13

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4. With food, keep it simple so you’re not stuck in the kitchen half the time.

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FRENEMIES (WITH NMES)

Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn B Y DA N DAV I E S

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hough they started out as gobby adversaries, Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher, the brains (sorry Liam) behind two of Britain’s biggest indie bands, have had strangely parallel public lives that have seen them inexorably drawn into each others’ orbit. Here’s how it breaks down:

WHO?

BR EAKTHROUGH

Noel Gallagher: “The working class hero who makes boastfulness likeable” (Esquire); “A potato” (Liam Gallagher). Damon Albarn: “Shape-shifting art pop mogul” (The Quietus); “The new David Bowie” (The Guardian).

NG: Definitely Maybe (1994). DA: Parklife (1994).

APPEAR ANCE

NG: Scally made good. DA: Art student made good.

Ten British albums you almost certainly bought on CD (and no longer own: Spotify, etc)

UK SINGLES

NG: 36 (26 Oasis; 10 Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) — eight UK Number Ones. DA: 42 (27 Blur; 11 Gorillaz; three The Good, the Bad & the Queen; one solo) — three UK Number Ones.

NG: Longsight, Manchester — “A really rough-arse part of town… [My childhood] was wrapped up in violence and drunkenness and there was no money… We couldn’t afford carpet and it was embarrassing when you’d bring girls back.” DA: Leytonstone, London — “We lived in a very ordinary little terraced house. But inside the house, it was painted silver, and there were mad kind of plastic, bright-coloured blocks which were our furniture… It was a pretty zany house… [my parents] used to have some great parties.” MEDIA PROFILE

NG: The UK’s most outspoken and amusing rock star. Sample quote: “I fucking hate whingeing rock stars. And I hate pop stars who are just… neh. Just nothing, you know? ‘Oh, yeah, my last selfie got 47-thousandmillion likes on Instagram.’ Yeah? Why don’t you fuck off and get a drug habit, you penis?” DA: The UK’s most aloof and media-wary rock star. Sample quote: “I couldn’t fit in with the lads at school. I was the weirdo. Post-stroke-gay. I always got called gay.”

Kevin Cummins

INFLUENCES

NG: The Beatles, The Who, David Bowie, The Haçienda, U2, The Soundtrack of Our Lives. DA: Syd Barrett, The Kinks, David Bowie, “Madchester”, African and Middle Eastern music.

BLUE LINES

Massive Attack

UK STUDIO A LBUMS OR IGINS

Soundtrack of the (quarter) century

NG: 10 (eight Oasis; two Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds) — nine UK Number Ones. DA: 15 (eight Blur; four Gorillaz; one The Good, the Bad & the Queen; two solo albums) — seven UK Number Ones.

(1991)

GORILLAZ

Gorillaz (2001)

SCR EAM A DELICA

Primal Scream

AWA R D S

NG: six Brit Awards (18 nominations); nil Grammy (three nominations). DA: five Brit Awards (31 nominations); one Grammy (10 nominations); one Mercury nomination; OBE (2016).

(1991)

OR IGINA L PIR ATE M ATER I A L

The Streets (2002)

FEUDS

NG: Blur, Liam Gallagher (“He’s the angriest man you’ll ever meet. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup”), Robbie Williams, Radiohead, One Direction, Arctic Monkeys, Apple Music. DA: Oasis, Blur, Adele.

DIFFER ENT CLASS

Pulp (1995)

UP THE BR ACK ET

The Libertines (2002)

A LSO KNOWN FOR…

NG: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. DA: Gorillaz, Mali Music, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, Rocket Juice and the Moon, Africa Express, numerous film, opera and theatre soundtracks.

URBAN HYMNS

The Verve (1997)

W H ATEV ER PEOPLE SAY I A M, TH AT’S W H AT I’M NOT

Arctic Monkeys (2006)

THE FUTURE

NG: Collaborating with Damon Albarn. DA: Collaborating with Noel Gallagher.

YOU’V E COME A L O N G WAY, B A B Y

Fatboy Slim (1998) XX

The xx Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn at the NME Brat Awards, London, January 1995

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(2009)

Below: Sir Simon Campbell photographed in London, 2006

Suits you… Sir Knight movers and shakers

CHEMIST

Sir Simon Campbell BY PAU L W I L SON

t’s not true that Sir Simon Campbell, who led a pioneering research team at the drugs giant Pfizer, was the developer of Viagra, despite him being classified as such by The Telegraph and other media outlets, when he was knighted in the New Year’s Honours of 2015, for services to chemistry. “I’m not on the Viagra patent,” he clarified to the BBC at the time. “I would say I was the father of Viagra because I laid the seed and started the project.” (He did, however, create Cardura and Norvasc, popular treatments for high blood pressure.) That original proposal for Viagra was written to instigate research into a compound for angina and high blood pressure. After the first clinical trials of the drug, under its generic name, sildenafil, at the Morriston Hospital in Swansea in the early Nineties, male patients reported unexpected yet highly satisfactory side effects, several days after a dose of the drug. Researchers initially thought the findings unimportant. Ian Osterloh, who ran the trials, later recalled, “I remember thinking that even if it did work, who would want to take a drug on a Wednesday to get an erection on Saturday?” Eventually, with so much evidence pointing in a new direction, the focus of the trial changed, from heart problems to erectile dysfunction, and so did Viagra’s lead time. On 27 March 1998, Campbell’s 57th birthday, the US government approved Viagra and users could expect a positive result about half an hour after taking a pill (it’s the same today). The effects took a little longer to reach the UK, where Viagra only became available on the NHS in July 1999. Pfizer’s share price, meanwhile, had doubled. Campbell did not become super-rich and famous along with his employers. The lot of the industrial chemist is to be relatively well paid for the work of discovering drugs for a company you understand — from your first day in the lab — will own entirely any drugs you discover. There is no profit share or percentage-per-pill. “Most scientists are doing it because they love the work,” says David Brown —

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formerly of Pfizer and now chief scientist of Antibiotic Research UK — who is one of three chemists whose name is on the 1991 sildenafil patent. “I haven’t even told my neighbours in the village where I live that I was an inventor of Viagra.” Brown also says that Campbell was driven to the point of “sometimes being overly tough with people,” but also that “he was one of those people who was right more often than he was wrong. Scientific research is mostly failure, and Simon had far more success than most. He had an instinct for what was going to work.” Campbell is also the sort of man who goes to Brazil for the 60th birthday of a former university football teammate; he was a visiting professor at the University of São Paulo from 1970–’72, after getting a PhD in chemistry from the University of Birmingham in 1965 and doing post-doctoral research in Chile. He joined Pfizer in 1972 as a medicinal chemist and rose to become senior VP for worldwide discovery, before retiring in 1998. He was president of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 2004–’06. Now 75, he is co-chair of the Royal Society’s Science, Industry and Translation Committee. “He’s a remarkable chap,” says Professor Ray Hill, Imperial College London pharmacologist. “Chemists tend to be formal, and that is not Simon. He’s an excellent scientist but also an excellent people-person — an unusual combination in a chemist.” Viagra itself also had an unexpected social element alongside the scientific achievement. It started a conversation, about a man’s most personal and potentially emotionally crippling social problem, that did not exist before, but a taboo shattered nonetheless. And at the centre of it all, Sir Simon Campbell, silent hero of sex and science, whose name does not appear on Viagra’s Wikipedia page, but whose prompting, guidance and wise counsel led to literally millions of men enjoying an unprecedented, life-changing boost.

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Sir Ian McKellen (1991) Sir Paul McCartney (1997) Sir Paul Smith (2000)

Sir Mick Jagger (2004) Sir Salman Rushdie (2007) Sir Bradley Wiggins (2013)

Sir-tainly not

Alan Bennett (declined in 1996) Peter Higgs (declined in 1999) David Bowie (declined in 2003)

Knights who said, ‘No!’

met Steve McQueen once. He was terrifying. It was an interview situation, and whenever the multiple-award-winning artist-turned-director didn’t like a question he’d brusquely shut me down and demand a new one, shouting, “Just hit me! Hit me with anything!” We met in-between the awards season trail for his 2011 sex addiction drama film Shame and pre-production duties on his Oscar-magnet 12 Years a Slave. He explained, later that day, chummy and relaxed, that people misunderstand him. He’s simply passionate. Yes, the 46-year-old from west London is big into passion. And the truth. And the need to be relevant. It comes, it would seem, directly from his creative background, as a fine arts student at Goldsmiths College and as the 1999 winner of the Turner Prize (he beat Tracey Emin’s bed!). He’s slippery too. Impossible to pin down. And if you overplay his arty beginnings he’ll dismiss it entirely and say that, actually, he always wanted to be a film-maker. What is certain, however, is that he has brought more than “just” an artist’s perception to the world of movies (if it was that easy then Julian Schnabel and Sam Taylor-Johnson would be up there,

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FILM-MAKER

Steve McQueen BY KEVIN MAHER

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Stephen Hawking (declined in 2009) Danny Boyle (declined in 2012) Mark Rylance (reputedly)

Left: Steve McQueen photographed by Djeneba Aduayom, Los Angeles, August 2016

too). From early in his knockout feature debut in 2008, Hunger, it became very clear that McQueen was using the camera with utter sincerity, even naïveté, as some sort of newfangled truth-telling device. In that film, about the hunger strikes of 1981, he stared, and we stared, unflinchingly, while a prison corridor slowly, slowly, filled with urine. In Shame there was an unforgettable, and seemingly ruthless, close-up of Michael Fassbender’s despairing sex addict Brandon caught between an orgasm (he’s having a threesome) and a wincing plea to the watching audience for a quick and efficient mercy-killing. While in 12 Years a Slave, the whipping of Lupita Nyong’o’s innocent Patsey is carried out in almost surreally prolonged, yet appropriately punishing detail. He’s timely, too, McQueen. He hates being called an “issues” filmmaker, and insists that he never “feeds” his audiences. And yet Shame arrived in the heat of discussions about the “pornification” of contemporary culture. While 12 Years a Slave prefigured, by mere months, both the Black Lives Matter and the #OscarsSoWhite campaigns. On the downside, he doesn’t do humour. But you sense that he is simply not interested in gags. He is apparently juggling two potential upcoming projects — a biopic of Paul Robeson and a BBC drama about the lives of black Britons — neither of which seems particularly geared towards throwaway punchlines. Life is transient, he reminded me, earnestly, and with passion, at the end of our encounter. “And all that matters is what you leave behind. Everything you do should be as if it’s your last. There’s no point otherwise.”

You are follically challenged...

British sportsmen’s greatest moments since 1991

N IC K FA L D O W I N S

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ENGLAND REGAIN

THE MASTERS, 1996

THE ASHES, 2005

Admittedly Faldo’s triumph had more to do with nemesis Greg Norman’s collapse, but the pair’s consoling embrace was as uplifting as the British win.

Crowing over a victory is never cool, unless it’s the Aussies and the Ashes. After 16 years and eight winless series, England finally won back that urn.

S T E V E R E D G R AV E ’ S

L E W I S H A M I LT ON W I N S F 1 , 2 0 0 8

FINA L M EDA L , 2000 Despite Sir Steve’s 1996 request to be shot if he got back in the boat, he rowed home his fifth consecutive gold medal at the Sydney Olympics.

Winning margins don’t come closer than Hamilton’s overtaking of Timo Glock on the last corner of the last lap of the last race of the season, to win the Drivers’ Championship by one, glorious, point.

ENGL A ND DEFE AT GER M A N Y 5-1,

BR A DLEY WIGGINS WINS THE

2001

TOUR DE FR ANCE, 2012

Let’s face it, the England football team haven’t covered themselves in glory over the past 25 years, but that night in Munich will always remain a highlight.

Though Team Sky have perfected the art of grinding out robotic victories, Sir Brad’s win — the first for a British rider — still had charismatic quirk.

LENNOX LEW IS K NOCK S OU T

MO FA R A H ’ S D OU BL E V IC T ORY

MIKE TYSON, 2002

AT LONDON 201 2

The long-awaited face-off was nearly overshadowed by the build-up, but Lewis’ right hook in the eighth round was well worth the wait.

The London Olympics were a general orgy of nationalistic pride, but the double drama of Farah’s gold-winning performances were the twin peaks.

ENGLAND WIN THE

A NDY M U R R AY W INS

R U G B Y W O R L D C U P, 2 0 0 3

WIMBLEDON, 2013

Jonny Wilkinson’s drop goal in the last minute of extra time was a heart-in-the-mouth moment that those watching — and we all were — will never forget.

After 77 years of asking, Britain finally had a men’s singles champion when Murray defeated world number one Novak Djokovic. He even smiled.

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..to match these infamous haircuts of the last quarter-century to their equally infamous owners. (Answers below)

David Beckham celebrates his injurytime equaliser against Greece to secure World Cup qualification for England, Old Trafford, Manchester, October 2001

avid Beckham — born in Leytonstone, son of a kitchen fitter and a hairdresser — has done majestically well in life for a good-looking lad unusually skilled at striking a ball with his right foot. On the wing of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in the late Nineties, Beckham won every medal going. By no means that team’s best player, he became the most iconic. But his devotion to his own image seemed to rival his commitment to the red jersey; and, infamously, the boss wasn’t having it. When, after an FA Cup loss to Arsenal in 2003, Ferguson angrily kicked a stray boot across a changing room and inflicted a cut on Beckham’s photogenic brow, it was a symbolic end of an era. There was, however, no stopping Beckham’s rise. His ardent following among women and gay men was wholly unprecedented for a footballer. Straight blokes were possibly less enchanted by the glamour-puss posing off the pitch: the OK!-sponsored wedding to Victoria Adams, the scheduled hair-dos, the parading in a sarong, the gothic-script rapper tattoos — what Brian Clough disparaged as “pop star rubbish”. Yet with each new frippery Beckham was repaid in headlines and lucrative contracts, so becoming the world’s foremost metrosexual. His admirers still see in him qualities far beyond that aforementioned right-foot expertise. England fans, for example, forgave him some poor shows in the finals of major tournaments. His self-inflicted red card against Argentina in 1998 was painfully immature, though he recovered his reputation with great resolve and dragged England

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Haircut answers: 1 Simon Cowell; 2 David Beckham; 3 Peter Andre; 4 Boris Johnson; 5 Chris Evans; 6 Harry Styles

PERFECT 10

Harry Styles

Boris Johnson

Chris Evans

Simon Cowell

David Beckham

Peter Andre

BRAND-BUILDER

Additional words by Miranda Collinge and Joseph Penaliggon | Getty | Rex

David Beckham BY R ICH A R D T K ELLY

to the next World Cup with an heroic late freekick against Greece. On the big stage, though, Beckham could be unreliable in the tackle and from the penalty spot, and yet he was selected even when unfit, as if he were needed to carry the team — which he wasn’t. From United he went to Real Madrid: a marriage of brands and a shirt-flogging exercise, though he played his part in the team’s 2007 La Liga-winning season. After

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that came a well-paid swansong in Hollywood with short spells in Milan and Paris, then retirement in 2013 that saw him segue with ease into a suited executive look. Beckham’s great fame really has less to do with football than any famous footballer you could name. But when Roy Keane chose his all-star Manchester United XI, he picked Beckham on the right. And you can’t argue with Keane — or I wouldn’t, anyhow.

November 2016

Fashion

Bright future Photographs by

Fashion by

Anton Corbijn

Catherine Hayward

Gucci Red/black/blue tartan doublefelted wool coat, £1,930, by Gucci 182

November 2016

In an issue dedicated to considerations of the past, a new name to look out for: 25-year-old Brit Joe Alwyn is about to be very famous indeed as the star of Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, an adaptation of the acclaimed novel set during the Iraq War

Giorgio Armani Blue double-jersey wool-cotton jacket, £1,350; blue doublejersey wool-cotton trousers, £520, both by Giorgio Armani

November 2016

Fashion

Burberry White/grey herringbone woolmohair-alpaca blend coat, £1,695; black striped denim jacket, £595, both by Burberry

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November 2016

Fashion Paul Smith Burgundy checkprinted wool jacket, £715; salmon pink cashmere jumper, £315; burgundy check-printed wool trousers, £325; brown leather boots, £370, all by Paul Smith

November 2016

In the spring of 2015, Joe Alwyn was

an adaptation of the best US novel so far to

a drama student in London. He’d just signed

come out of the Iraq War, Ben Fountain’s crit-

perfectly reflects his unassuming demeanour. It isn’t often one gets to meet someone in

with an agent, who suggested he audition

ically revered Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

the days before they go from regular person

for the director Ang Lee’s new film. (Lee is

Alwyn was auditioning for the part of Billy.

to international star. Joe Alwyn is about to

the man, in case you didn’t know, behind

Lee and the casting director kept Alwyn in

be everywhere, and yet no one’s ever heard

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and

New York, asking him to try different scenes,

of him. (Also in Billy Lynn: Kristen Stewart,

Brokeback Mountain (2005), among other

then took him to Atlanta to read more in

Chris Tucker, Vin Diesel and Steve Martin.)

Oscar-winners.)

make-up and costume in front of the 3D cam-

Alwyn grew up in north London with a film-

“I got my dad to tape some [audition]

eras to be used for the film proper, then even-

maker father and psychotherapist mother, and

scenes in my room,” remembers the 25-year-

tually — perhaps sympathetically — put him

never really exhibited a desire to act at first.

old, “and asked some friends to tape me in my

on a plane back to London. In bed the next

“I was never the loud kid, the precocious kid,”

lunch break at drama school, and I sent the

night, he got another call telling him the

he says. “In my mind, the idea of an actor

tapes to America.” Two days later, he was on

part was his. Four days later he dropped out

was one of those people who put themselves

a plane to New York to read in person for Lee

of drama school. According to Alwyn, it was

out there all the time. I was, and am, more

and the casting director for Lee’s next project,

“a very strange week”, an understatement that

introverted, I guess.”

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November 2016

However, the desire soon grew throughout

culminating in an extravagant halftime live

reality. Joe Alwyn’s time in the limelight is just

his education. He acted whenever he could at

show at a Thanksgiving Day football game.

beginning. We’ll next see him in a BBC pro-

school and, in addition to English literature,

It’s the story of a young man — a boy, really —

duction of Julian Barnes’ Booker Prize-win-

studied drama at Bristol University, taking

thrown into a world he doesn’t yet understand

ning novel The Sense of an Ending starring

numerous productions to Edinburgh as an

and then presented on a pedestal to the world:

alongside Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling

undergraduate. The dramatic career began in

parallels with Alwyn’s own story are obvious.

and Emily Mortimer. Beyond that, he doesn’t

earnest at the Royal Central School of Speech

“There’s an echo [between his and Billy’s

know, but Alwyn isn’t fazed either way: “Peo-

and Drama, but when he sent those tapes to

stories], and I was aware of that. Ang likes his

ple who I don’t know so well expect things to

Ang Lee in the States, he was still very much

actors to be raw. They’re unformed and have

have changed a lot, like something huge has

an unknown quantity.

no habits in front of the camera. You’re just

shifted in me. And I don’t feel that at all.”

It’s this rawness that may have given Alwyn

trying to be truthful to the situation, rather

the edge for the role of Billy Lynn. The film

than having any knowledge of how a film set

tells the story of a teenage soldier who comes

works, and you have no barriers up,” he says.

home a hero after a particularly grisly battle

In the movie, when the dazzle of the sta-

in Iraq, and is presented to America on a tour

dium pyros have faded, Billy goes back to

Charlie Teasdale Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is in cinemas on 6 January 2017

Prada Brown/beige checked tweed jacket, £3,160; brown/beige tweed checked shirt, £1,270; grey/black chevronvelvet trousers, £710; black cotton socks, £70; burgundy/grey leather shoes, £795, all by Prada

November 2016

Fashion Lanvin Blue/grey wool Prince of Wales check bomber jacket, £980; black viscose embroidered shirt-jacket, £505; blue stone-washed denim trousers, £405, all by Lanvin

November 2016

Fashion

Louis Vuitton Navy/grey patterned wool trench coat, £4,730; white crew neck long-sleeve T-shirt, £185; navy wool patch-pocket trousers, £600; black glazed calf leather boots, £830, all by Louis Vuitton

189

November 2016

Fashion Dior Homme Red/black checked cotton-flannel shirt, £400; black denim skinny jeans, £420; black calfskin boots, £720, all by Dior Homme

190

November 2016

Fashion Jaeger

Photographer’s assistant: Anja Grabert Fashion assistant: Emie James-Crook Grooming: Mari Ohashi at LGA Management using Bumble and Bumble | See Stockists page for details

Olive/navy checked wool-blend blouson jacket with shearling collar, £250; flint blue cotton T-shirt, £25; navy checked wool slim-cut trousers, £120, all by Jaeger

Tony Blair Continued from page 163

“Occasionally we can,” he said. “But it is pretty occasional. Not on this trip. She will come to the dinner we’ve got tonight but it’s a working dinner.” Is it rare for Cherie to come on work trips? “Reasonably, because I tend to be in and out. But I also try to make sure I spend time at home.” We talked about how he fights jet lag (“I take a sleeping pill if I have to”), his exercise routine (“I go to the gym most days; it gets more important as you get older”), and I asked about the psychological effects of his strange, accelerated existence, of life inside the bubble. “You’ve got to keep, as I would say, control of your soul,” he said. “Because otherwise you do become weird. You’ve got to realise that in the end you are never as important as you think you are.” He used to make a contrast between politicians and “normal people”, the suggestion being he was among the latter. Does he still think so? “You have to be very careful of that kind of self-analysis,” he said. “A hundred people stand up and say, ‘He’s not normal at all!’”

EXCER PTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH TONY BLAIR, LONDON, 15 SEPTEMBER 2016 PA RT T H R E E

You have made a lot of money since you left office. Why is it necessary to make so much? “Because otherwise you can’t build your organisation. And I put a large amount of my money into the organisation. I’ve actually given away probably more than my net worth.” Can you tell me how much? Otherwise all people know is you get £2m a year from JP Morgan, and you’ve got big houses. “Look, I’ve got to be very clear about this. For the first time in my life, in my sixties, I have enough money to have a nice house in London, a nice house in the country. That’s absolutely true and I’m not saying I don’t. Today, I’ve got a much higher standard of living than I’ve ever had. OK. All of that’s true. However, I’ve put millions and

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millions of pounds that I’ve earned into running the organisation. I’ve given away, I think, in charitable donations, over £10m. If I wanted to make money, I’d spend my life making money. It’s always difficult, this, because on one level, of course I’ve done well. The business has been successful. But on another level, what we’ve been able to do as a result of that is to build the infrastructure to allow us to do more not-for-profit work. Now I will maintain my personal consultancy [work] but otherwise everything moves into not-for-profit, and I will be gifting a substantial amount of money to that work. In the end, if people want to know what I’m actually doing and how I actually spend my time, they should go to the website and have a look at it. The rest, if they want to believe what they read in the Daily Mail or these other papers…” I read some of it in The Times. In April, The Times reported that — I’m quoting here — you “use a secret trust to manage your multimillion-pound wealth”. Is there a secret trust to manage your multimillion-pound wealth? “No. What we have is an arrangement which allows us privacy. What [The Times] wanted to do, they wanted to write a story saying I was trying to avoid tax. It then emerged from their so-called undercover operation that everyone agreed not merely that there was no tax avoidance but that I’d actually instructed the people that set up my arrangements that there should be no tax avoidance. So, we employ no tax dodgers at all. I pay my full tax and I pay it on all my earnings, worldwide, even though I don’t actually make any money in this country. Which, by the way, I should do.” Because your business affairs are more difficult to untangle than your charitable work, and because of the secrecy, that creates suspicion. Do you regret setting them up in that way? “It’s difficult. If I thought that in disclosing the information it would be properly used, I’d probably disclose more. But in the new arrangements we’re changing all of that and so all of these structures will go. The business side will close.” Do you regret working as an adviser to the Kazakhstan government? Apart from anything else, it gave people another stick to beat you with. “That’s true. And that was difficult. And actually we haven’t worked in Kazakhstan for a couple of years but I’m very happy to say why we worked there. It’s important that people realise, Kazakhstan is a country that is wedged between Russia and China, a country the size of Europe that insists on being an ally of the West as well as having alliances with Russia and China. It’s a majority Muslim country that is moderate, and the people we were working with there were really good, reforming ministers, and we were doing very sensible work there. But, of course, it turned into a big stick to beat us with.”

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Because it’s an autocratic government and you are meant to oppose autocratic governments. “Yeah. No, I understand that. But what is important to work out, if countries have tried to embark on a process of change, is: is it good to help them or not? And I think it is good to help them but I understand why it allows people to say, ‘You’re doing something you shouldn’t be.’ There were reasons we had for doing it. But we haven’t worked there now for a couple of years.” If David Cameron were to ask you for advice on what to do now, what would you tell him to do, and not to do? “I’ve definitely made mistakes since I left.” What were they? “I think we allowed the money thing to become far too big an issue. We’ve had to spend our whole time persuading people that the complexity of the financial structure was not about tax avoidance when it obviously wasn’t. And, also, I think you’ve just got to realise, to your point on working in Kazakhstan, that with something like that, however much objectively you can justify it, and it’s sensible to do it, you’re going to get a lot of criticism. But I think, as I’ve said to you before, what is difficult is people leave office young now. [Cameron is] leaving office even younger than I was. He’s got at least 20 active years of his life yet. I mean, what’s he going to do? If he makes money through speaking or takes certain positions, he’ll be criticised for that.”

T

o get to the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem you must first pass through a series of security checks. Your passport must be studied at length, by three young women in black suits, who must talk among themselves, glancing occasionally in your direction and then returning to their whispered conversation. Then — in my case, anyway — you must be led outside into the sunshine and asked a series of questions about what you are doing in Israel by a girl who looks to be no older than 19. What is your business with the Prime Minister? Who booked your appointment? Who else have you met while you’ve been in the country? Where else have you been? Where are you staying? How long? Then the girl must go back inside and relay all this to a more senior woman, possibly as old as 22, and you must be taken outside again and asked more questions. Your passport must be taken from you, returned, taken from you again, and returned again. At length, I was allowed to pass through the metal detector and into the building. The interior is not grand. It’s functional, even a bit shabby. It

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could be any grey municipal building in a provincial town: the mayor’s office in a Midwestern American city, perhaps. After a wait on a sofa, and a coffee from the machine, I was led down a long beige corridor, small offices on either side, a large pot plant beside each one. At the end, on the right, a glass door led into a large outer office. Here, I placed my phone in a plastic basket. I showed my Dictaphone to the woman holding the basket and she nodded to say it was fine for me to take it into the room. “Good luck!” called out one of Tony Blair’s staffers, as the doors opened. I took this to be a sign that I might need it. The office is not large. It is smarter, homelier even, than the communal parts of the building. I filed in with members of Blair’s team and what seemed an enormous amount of aides, who lined up against a wall in front of a map of the Middle East. Simon Emmett, who took the photos on these pages, was with me, as he was throughout my trip to Israel, and he began snapping away. Blair and the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were seated bilaterally, on leather armchairs, a circular glass-topped coffee table between them. Netanyahu is not a tall man, but he’s solidly built. I felt that both Blair and I seemed slender and insubstantial in his presence. Blair’s chatty good-blokeishness is designed to put people at ease, and it works like a charm. Netanyahu doesn’t go in for that kind of thing. He was wearing a dark suit and a red patterned tie. We were all wearing dark suits and ties, even Blair, who rarely bothers with the neckwear. Blair introduced me and I shook hands with Netanyahu, who waved at some chairs that were arranged around a modest table. “Do what you have to do,” he said, or something like that. I turned a chair round and sat near Blair, who nodded at me, and gave me a tense smile. I showed him my voice recorder and indicated I was about to press “record” but he shook his head as if to say “Probably best not to” — this was, then, to be an off-the-record briefing — and I said something like, “OK, I’ll write it down.” I’d been keeping notes in the other meetings, even when they were not for publication. As Simon stepped forward to get his shots, Blair told Netanyahu, as he had told a number of his contacts here in Jerusalem, that Simon was a “world-renowned” photographer who lives in London, but that he was also an Israeli. Both these statements are true: Simon is indeed world-renowned, and he has both British and Israeli passports. Netanyahu didn’t seem especially impressed. He asked Simon if he speaks Hebrew. In Hebrew, Simon answered that he does. The Prime Minister spoke a short sentence to Simon, while rapping his knuckles, quite hard, on the coffee table. Then Netanyahu translated for me: “Do what you have to do, and do it fast.” We all laughed. My laughter was possibly slightly more forced. “So: ask,” said Netanyahu.

I wanted to know if he really thought that the plan for peace that Blair is promoting — a new framework for multilateral peace talks, involving the Arab states as well as the Israelis and the Palestinians — could work? Was he optimistic? Netanyahu started to speak, quickly, in perfect English, and I began to scribble. (It’s at moments such as these that I regret most my lack of shorthand.) He said that he felt more optimistic about peace than he had a year previously, and that he’d felt more optimistic then, than he had the year before that. He then began to say flattering things about Blair’s role in the process, about what an “invaluable partner” Blair is, and Blair, sensing that all this was definitely on the record and I wasn’t getting it word perfectly, which was irritating, looked at me and whispered, firmly: “Turn your machine on!” I did, but Netanyahu had moved on to talking more specifically about the chances for peace. Blair need not have worried. I’d written down what Netanyahu said about him. When Netanyahu had finished speaking, he glared at me. He told me I should feel free to edit what he’d said, but that I was not to change the sense of it. I said I wouldn’t. Within 24 hours I was supplied with a transcript of the meeting. (I debated whether or not to include that scene. It makes Blair’s visit to the Prime Minister’s office seem self-serving. And my and Simon’s presence at it purely cosmetic: we were being allowed in only to record the fact that the meeting had taken place, that Blair has the ear of the Israeli Prime Minister, and that the peace talks are a real possibility, not only the fantasy of a man eager to repair his reputation. Then again, it happened, and it was quite funny, or I thought so — maybe you had to be there — and no doubt the joke, if there is one, is on me.) What Netanyahu said was essentially the same thing that Blair and other contacts of his had been saying to me since I’d arrived in Israel three days earlier. I have edited it, as I have all the conversations in this piece, but not in a way that alters the substance of it. He said that the conditions might be right to begin a new push for a broader Arab-Israeli peace and an Israeli-Palestinian peace. And that he shared Blair’s analysis that the two are connected. “There is a change in our region and in the world,” Netanyahu said, “as many countries understand that Israel is not their enemy, but their ally in the battle against the twin forces of militant Islam — the militant Shiites led by Iran and the militant Sunnis led by Isis. And this creates opportunities for cooperation and for normalising relations between Israel and the Arab world. “It used to be said that if we have a breakthrough for peace with the Palestinians, then we’d have a breakthrough for a broader Arab-Israeli peace. And that’s certainly true, but more and more it looks like things could work actually the other way around — that by normalising our rela-

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tions with the Arab world, we can harness these newfound relationships to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And that is something that I’ve been discussing continuously and seriously with Tony, and with others in the region and beyond the region.” When Netanyahu had finished speaking and it was clear the interview was over, Blair and Netanyahu had their photo taken together in front of the map, and when that was finished I joined them there. Beneath the map was a glass case about the size of a shoebox. Inside it, Netanyahu told us, pointing at each in turn, were two objects: the first was a model of an ancient Roman arrowhead, the kind used to kill Jews during the destruction of the Second Temple in AD70. The other was a model of the Arrow, Israel’s anti-ballistic missile. It looked like a child’s plastic toy. That was their arrow, Netanyahu said to Blair, pointing at it again, and this is ours. The Romans, he said, are long gone from Jerusalem. “We’re still here.” He said it in the way a twinkly great uncle might tell an old family anecdote. But I don’t think anyone could have missed his point, and certainly Blair hadn’t. Netanyahu’s story was not an amusing one, and his point was deadly serious, but it seemed to demand a worldly response. Blair laughed, diplomatically. It was Sunday morning, the first day of the working week in Israel. Blair had arrived in the country 48 hours earlier, on a night flight from Sierra Leone. His trip to Africa had included visits to a palm kernel oil processing factory in Liberia, discussions about energy with the President of Guinea, and a tour of the port at Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. Now he was in Israel, talking peace. This was his 32nd visit to the country in a year, I was told. (He seemed a bit shocked when I passed that titbit along.) It began at the offices of the Quartet on the Middle East, in East Jerusalem, the Arab part of the city. It was from this building that for eight years, until he resigned in 2015, Blair worked as the Middle East envoy of the Quartet (the UN, US, EU and Russia), his only official job since leaving Downing Street. He had three meetings in quick succession: with a high-ranking figure of the Quartet; a senior Palestinian; and an expert on the region. (Not everyone is as happy as Blair and Netanyahu for their names to appear in the pages of a glossy magazine, for reasons that became obvious to me as the delicacy of their positions was explained, so as requested I haven’t named them.) We moved in convoy to the splendid King David Hotel, in West Jerusalem, through the fierce heat of the afternoon. Simon and I rode in the first of three Land Cruisers, with UN decals on their roofs. Blair rode in the second. We were accompanied by two of Blair’s team, both Israeli women, as well as four Scotland Yard policemen. The King David once housed the offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, and

>

was famously bombed, in 1946, by the Zionist paramilitaries of the Irgun. Here, in the basement, Blair met Dore Gold. (It’s pronounced Dory, as in Finding Dory.) Gold is an urbane, moustachioed man, expansive in both conversation and waistline. A veteran Israeli diplomat — American by birth and education — Gold was at one time the Israeli Ambassador to the UN (not, I sensed, a popular organisation in the country) and has been a close adviser to former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and to Netanyahu, who has recently made him director-general of the Foreign Ministry. Like the others we met, Gold was cautiously encouraging about the possibilities for peace. He said that the new framework for negotiations that Blair was promoting was worth trying. “The opportunity is obvious,” he said. “Whether it is seized or not.” No matter whom he met, Blair exuded a sort of controlled bonhomie. He was friendly but not familiar, informal but respectful. He made everyone feel important, he made even me feel (almost) important. He continued to introduce Simon as a “world-renowned” photographer, which made Simon feel good, and also everyone else in the room feel good, because it’s pleasant to feel that one is participating in events that justify the presence of a “world-renowned” photographer. One foreign ambassador to Israel beamed like a competition winner. On the hour-long drive back from Jerusalem to Herzliya, an affluent coastal enclave north of Tel Aviv, where the Blair group was booked into the Ritz-Carlton hotel, I sat on a bench seat in the back of our Land Cruiser and stared out of the window. We sped past mountains and valleys, past palm trees, past Palestinian towns on one side and Israeli towns on the other, the former quite clearly less prosperous, by many degrees, than the latter. The setting sun shone softly and pinkly on both, without discrimination. The next morning, in his suite overlooking the beach and the sparkling Mediterranean, in chinos and a light blue shirt the same colour as the cloudless sky, I asked Blair what exactly he was doing here in Israel, given the fact he no longer has an official role. He took me through the history. During his time as prime minister, he said, he had some involvement with the issue of Israel and Palestine. In 2007, he decided, as he prepared to leave office, that he would take on the building of Palestinian statehood as one of his causes, hence his appointment as envoy for the Quartet. There were negotiations over what his mandate would be, and ultimately it was non-political. “That became an inhibition, frankly,” he said. To the press and public, Blair had been sent to Jerusalem to bring peace to the Middle East — or something. Actually, his job was less ambitious, though perhaps not that much less difficult: he was to work with the Palestinian Authority to build the Palestinian economy in the West Bank and Gaza. Eventu-

25

ally, he found that having no say in the political situation meant that his efforts were stymied by circumstances beyond his influence. “I ended up in a situation you should never be in in politics,” he said, “which is responsibility but not power. I mean, having power without responsibility is great but having responsibility without power is not very sensible.” The reason, in Blair’s view, that peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not just desirable — for obvious reasons — but potentially transformative is that “if you manage to make peace between Arabs and Israelis, you strike a huge blow for cultural acceptance and for peaceful coexistence. Alternatively, if it ends up in conflict and dispute, you give power to those elements that are extreme. “It’s not just a territorial issue,” he said of Israel-Palestine. “It is in part a conflict about cultural acceptance. It has implications for the world.” I asked him again to explain to me exactly where he fits into all this. “My role is that I have established relationships in the region. From the first months I came here, people said, ‘You’ll last six months.’ Well, I’m still here. ‘You’ll last a year.’ I’m still here. After I left the Quartet they said ‘That’s it, he’s off now.’ I’m still here.” “What’s been very strange since leaving the Quartet,” he added, “is that, because I don’t have an official position, it’s actually easier for me. People feel able to be more frank. And so what I do is, I work on how this [process] might be put together. And I think there is a general desire to have [the Arab nations] involved now.” Blair began to talk about the new leaders in the region — in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar — and how sensible and dynamic they were, and how much they wanted to support the new framework for peace, and how the stars were aligning for a solution. I looked around at his suite, the balcony overlooking the beach. Who pays for this room? I asked. “I pay for it in part,” he said. “But it’s raised money. I have to raise money.” This isn’t a charity project, what you’re doing here? “Well, it’s not in a formal, legal sense, it’s not. And I suppose actually it will be, in the end.” “We’re almost there,” said one of Blair’s team.

EXCER PTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH TONY BLAIR, LONDON, 15 SEPTEMBER 2016 PA RT FOU R

You don’t have to do any of this stuff you’re doing now. No one is forcing you to do it. It’s

AT [ 194 ]

not like if you don’t do it, everyone’s going to go, ‘Why the hell isn’t Tony Blair out there fixing the Middle East? It’s up to him to sort it!’ So, this is entirely your choice. The question is: what makes you do it? Why are you doing it? “Because I think I’ve got something to contribute to a thing that is important and because if you’ve spent most of your life trying to make a difference in the world you want to carry on doing it.” A cynical man would suggest that also you’re atoning for something… “No.” Or that you feel a sense of responsibility because you were one of the main players in how the world has come to this point. “That’s a slightly different thing. I do feel a sense of responsibility. And my interest in doing things around the peace process in the Middle East, yes, is in part as a result of my experience in government. But it’s also because I think, again rightly or wrongly, that I have, as a result of my experience, a way of looking at these issues — development, extremism, Middle East — which is different and where I believe that the policy has to change. And, you know, we’re still building this whole organisation. A lot of people won’t think this way at the moment because most people just read about [his personal wealth] or about Iraq or so on, and don’t actually understand what I’m doing now. But I think we will in time build this organisation into something really significant. But we will see.” Others would suggest you are doing what you’re doing because you hope to repair your reputation. “No.” Instead of the guy who invaded Iraq, you could be the guy who fixed the Middle East peace process. Which would be better. “No, it’s not to do with that. It’s to do with the fact that I’m really interested and I think I’ve got something to contribute. I think what’s interesting, for example, about the Middle East, is, I would say, this debate and activity that I’ve developed around the possibility of a new relationship between Israel and the Arab world. I think increasingly it is being accepted as the most sensible way forward. Now, I will only ever play a part in that but that’s where I think I can make a contribution and that’s why I do it. And because I think it is connected to this wider issue of extremism, since I think you will never defeat this extremism unless you fix the Middle East. And it will be fixed, by the way, in the end. People look at it and say it’s hopeless. No, it’s not, it’s undergoing this agonising process of transition but in the end what will emerge, with whatever difficulty and however much turmoil there will be in the meantime, what will emerge will be something much better.”

25

I’ve followed you around a bit. Your life is extremely circumscribed by your position. It’s a beautiful day outside. The rest of us can go for a coffee, or wander in the park for a bit, sit on a bench and read a book. You can’t. Do you miss that? “I do miss that. But it just comes with the territory, doesn’t it?” Do you ever think about how you could have taken a different path? You chose this life, you could have chosen another. “Sometimes, I do think, ‘What would have happened if I had taken a different path?’ I don’t think I would ever have stayed a lawyer. I might have done other things, and I’m still very interested in learning and thinking and writing about other things. I’m very interested in concepts of faith and issues to do with religion. I’ve always been really interested in that. But right now I’m very focused on the centre ground in politics and how it recovers its energy and vitality.” You’ll soon have been the former prime minister longer than you were the sitting one. You’ve said that you enjoy your new life more than you enjoyed your previous one. “I always found it a bit odd when people talked about ‘enjoying’ being prime minister. I think some people do, by the way, but I would never describe it that way. You have a huge sense of purpose but I found the decisions of such magnitude that it was hard to enjoy it very often.” How would you describe it? Fulfilling? “Yeah, definitely. You’re taking big decisions and running a country so it’s exciting in that sense, but…” And now? “It’s less stressful.”

B

efore he was elected prime minister for the first time, before 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq and everything else, Tony Blair seemed to some of us like one of us. Not everyone, by any means, but many people in Britain were persuaded by him. That’s why he won three consecutive general elections. The thing about seeming to be one of us and turning out to be one of them — if that’s what happened — is that it’s worse than if you’d obviously been one of them from the beginning. It feels like a betrayal. It stings. And that perhaps explains some of the fury directed at Blair, even before you arrive at the specifics of Iraq and so on. To some he will always be “Tony Bliar”, venal

pocket-liner. To many, he is discredited, at best. All this has to hurt, of course, on a personal level — Blair is a charmer, someone who likes to be liked — but perhaps more damagingly, in his eyes, it means that, for now at least, his brand of politics is tarnished by association. The centre ground, here and elsewhere, is in retreat, and the extreme fringes are in the ascendant. (Whether you think this is the fault of Blair and his generation of leaders or not, unless you are yourself of the far left or the far right, it’s hard to feel much sense of triumph about it.) When we talked in Israel, I alluded to the fact that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the least popular presidential candidates ever in the US, and said what an indictment that was of contemporary politics. “And you can go right round the world on that,” he said. And in the UK? “Well,” he said, “in the UK at the moment you’ve got a one-party state.” Yes, I said, and the leader was not elected. “When you put it all together,” he said, “there’s something seriously wrong.” In London, I asked about Jeremy Corbyn, and the way the hard left has taken control of the Labour Party, all but erasing the work Blair and his inner circle had done, over many years, making Labour the party of government. It was as if New Labour had never happened. I asked him if he could take Jeremy Corbyn seriously as a potential prime minister? “This is not about Jeremy Corbyn,” he said. “It’s about two different cultures in one organism. One culture is the culture of the Labour Party as a party of government. And that, historically, is why Labour was formed: to win representation in Parliament and ultimately to influence and to be the government of the country. The other culture is the ultra-left, which believes the important thing is to raise the consciousness of the people, that believes that the action on the street is as important as the action in Parliament. That culture has now taken the leadership of the Labour Party. It’s a huge problem because they live in a world that is very, very remote from the way that the broad mass of people really think.” Blair was on a roll now. “The reason why the position of these guys is not one that will appeal to an electorate is not because they’re too left,” he said, “or because they’re too principled. It’s because they’re too wrong. The reason their policies shouldn’t be supported isn’t because they’re just too wildly radical, it’s because they’re not. They don’t work. They’re actually a form of conservatism. This is the point about them. What they are offering is a mixture of fantasy and error.” On 24 September, Corbyn strengthened his position by defeating a challenge to his leadership. The following day I spoke to Blair on the phone. He was in Los Angeles, raising funds for his work in the Middle East.

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I asked how he felt about Corbyn’s victory. He said he felt the same way now as he did before. “Frankly,” he said, “it’s a tragedy for British politics if the choice before the country is a Conservative government going for a hard Brexit and an ultra-left Labour Party that believes in a set of policies that takes us back to the Sixties.” I wondered if he wasn’t now questioning his decision to keep quiet during the leadership contest? “I don’t think it would have made any difference at all,” he said. “Certainly if I’d intervened for [Corbyn’s challenger] Owen Smith it probably would not have helped him. In fact it wouldn’t have helped him. That’s just the reality.” In other words, so unpopular is Blair even in his own party, the one he led to the greatest electoral successes in its history, that if he were to take a position in a debate it would damage that position, as a direct consequence. I asked if he could ever see a time when there would be a formal role for him in the Labour Party, or in British politics? “I don’t know if there’s a role for me,” he said. “But I’ve got views and I’ve just expressed them to you. I guess I’m entitled to speak. It’s a free country.” What, I asked Blair, will his legacy be? “My Lord,” he said. “That’s one of those...” He ummed and erred for a while. “I think it’s too early to say, actually,” he said. “I know that sounds a bit of a...” He tailed off. Then started again. “I don’t like talking about my own legacy,” he said. “Everyone’s got their own opinion.” “I don’t know,” he said. “I could write you an essay on it, but...” For a very brief moment, he sounded almost defeated. But then he rallied, as he tends to do, and he began to spell out all the positive things he felt he had achieved while he was in office, and of course there are plenty of those, some easy to explain — the introduction of the minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland — others harder to measure, such as what he describes as a more tolerant society, with less prejudice, more equality of opportunity. And he went on for a while from there. “Playing my part in all that was, I hope, what the legacy will be, but who knows?” Still, when he looks at the political situation now, it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t feel dismayed? “Obviously,” he said, “there’s been this huge reaction against the politics I represent. But I think it’s too soon to say the centre has been defeated. Ultimately I don’t think it will be. I think it will succeed again.” He doesn’t feel deflated or depressed? “Mostly I feel motivation,” he said. “The centre ground is in retreat. This is our challenge. We’ve got to rise to that challenge.” I tried again. What is his role going to be in this? Can he see himself returning to politics in some way? “There’s a limit to what I want to say about my own position at this moment,” he said. “All I can say is that this is where politics is at. Do I feel very strongly about it? Yes, I do. Am I very motivated by that? Yes. Where do I go from here? What exactly do I do? That’s an open question.”

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Directory Withstand winter’s worst while completing your look in one — a peacoat fits the bill perfectly Edited by Emie James-Crook

Look 1 Navy wool-mix peacoat, £85, by Topman Mustard wool ribbed sweater, £100, by Jaeger White cotton oxford shirt, £40, by Lands’ End

Chestnut leather boots, £250, by J Crew Olive waterproof cottoncanvas holdall, £395, by Private White VC Stainless steel Trainmaster Standard Time watch on brown crocodile leather strap, £1,880, by Ball

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Blue 501 denim jeans, £85, by Levi’s

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Look 2 Khaki wool peacoat, £70, by Marks & Spencer Plum cotton roll-neck, £25, by Next Brown wool trousers, £40, by Marks & Spencer Brown leather shoes, £455, by Joseph Cheaney for Vivienne Westwood Chocolate brown leathersuede briefcase, £525, by Aspinal of London Steel Night Vision chronograph on steel bracelet, £775, by Victorinox

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