AUTUMN 24
BEN HARDY
From Albert Square to Hollywood: In conversation with the brilliant, unlikely superstar
84
Inside the new novel from the author of Normal People
In search of fulfilment in the ‘happiest city on earth’
The pumpkin spice latte is more than just a syrupy drink – it’s a state of mind
JESPER chair
£200
the
Pondering the question of how one should spend one’s spare time is how I have been spending my own, lately. This and trawling the Linkedin Lunatics subreddit, with which I have become morbidly fascinated. The two things are, I think, intrinsically linked.
There is a drive – a movement, even – towards Productivity At All Costs, something spearheaded by self-styled gurus who populate Instagram, Youtube and, especially, Linkedin. On P14 we look at the meteoric rise of the business social network and ask what its (often bonkers) advice says about our current moment. On P12 our books editor makes an impassioned defence of using one’s spare time for pleasure, whether that be reading fiction or indulging in hobbies. And on P44 we interview the self-proclaimed “highest paid life coach in the UK”, surely the apex predator of the self-help world.
16: LIFE AFTER SEEDLIP
We travel to Seedlip founder Ben Branson’s countryside laboratory to find out about his latest project
22: NO MORE NOMA
The most famous restaurant in the world is about to close forever. We look at its legacy and ask: what’s next?
44: LIFE COACH ME
30: CHEF’S TABLE
Wine writer Hannah Crosbie interviews comedian Grace Campbell – and things get messy
62: WATCHES
The 1990s are back! We bring you the best throwback timepieces to add to your collection
72: TRAVEL
Productivity is clearly something to which we should aspire – and reading our sister publication City AM will certainly help you in that regard – but surely it should be a means to an end rather than an end itself. So why not reward all your hard work by taking some time to read our articles on the “happiest town in the happiest country in the world” (P40) or one man’s bid to become the World Karaoke Champion (P58). You can find these stories and more on cityam.com or our app, which you can access using this QR code.
– STEVE DINNEEN
It’s an industry worth more than $4bn – but does it work? We booked a session to find out
48: TATTOO TABOO
Getting inked on your face used to be a ‘jobstopper’ – but are attitudes to ‘extreme’ tats changing?
Tbilisi in Georgia is the most fascinating city in Europe – here’s why it should be your next trip
84: MOTORING
We chat to the architect who designs luxury flats to reflect the personality of your supercar
ANNA MOLONEY is the magazine’s resident bookworm. On P88 she reviews the new Sally Rooney novel Intermezzo and asks: was Medusa the snakeheaded gorgon a girlboss?
ADAM HAY-NICHOLLS, usually our motoring correspondent, jets out to Panama. On P80 he checks out one of the wonders of the modern world and discovers a land both rugged and luxurious
LUCY KENNINGHAM is a features writer at City AM. On P44 she signs up for a session with the UK’s selfproclaimed most expensive life coach to see if the industry is all it’s cracked up to be
SADIA NOWSHIN is a freelance lifestyle and culture writer. On P26 she goes in search of restaurants who have experienced – and lost – viral fame. Is there life after Tiktok?
ALEX DYMOKE is a speechwriter who works with some of the biggest names in politics . On P10 he explains why AI won’t be taking his job any time soon – despite what Donald Trump thinks
ADAM BLOODWORTH is City AM The Magazine’s deputy editor. On P40 he visits the happiest town in the happiest country in search of the secret to true happiness
For more great articles go to cityam.com. For a digital version of The Magazine go to cityam.com/the-magazine
EDITORIAL TEAM:
Steve Dinneen Editor-in-chief Adam Bloodworth Deputy Editor
Billy Breton Creative Director Chris Stopien Deputy Creative Director Andy Blackmore Picture Editor Alex Doak Watch Editor Adam Hay-Nicholls Motoring Editor Tom Matuszewski Illustrator Anna Moloney Books Editor
COMMERCIAL TEAM: Harry Owen Chief Operating Officer Graeme Pretty Agency Sales Director Nzima Ndangana Luxury & Direct Sales Director
For sales enquiries contact commercial@cityam.com. City AM The Magazine is published by City AM, 107 Cheapside, EC2V 6DN. Some products and websites promoted in this magazine are owned and distributed by City AM parent company The Hut Group
This may sound like turkeys voting against Christmas but in the digital age, speechwriting has never been more important, says professional speechwriter
ALEX DYMOKE
He goes click, click, click, and like 15 seconds later he shows me my speech, written so beautifully.”
This is Donald Trump on Logan Paul’s podcast, describing his first encounter with ChatGPT. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And so quickly… It’s a little bit scary… So one industry I think that will be gone are these wonderful speechwriters.” Gulp.
It’s no surprise Trump thinks the end is nigh for us speechwriters. After all, he’s never had much time for our craft. Much to the frustration of his minders, no Trump speechwriter has ever managed to wrestle the pen from the animal id that riffs and rambles, autocue be damned.
Yet the former president’s dire prediction betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what we do. A good speech isn’t just a collection of lovely words — it’s a distillation of a personality, crafted for human consumption. A good speechwriter, then, must be skilled at deciphering human nature and identifying which facets of a person’s character are rhetorically useful.
In other words, speechwriting starts with empathetic skills which, for now at least, are the exclusive preserve of human beings. A large language model can digest billions of words and make a fairly accurate prediction of what a decent convention speech might look like. It can’t make a nuanced judgement about how to shape an amorphous mix of traits, tendencies and convictions into a well-defined character perfect for a particular moment in American history. Not yet, anyway.
If anything, this high tech age has made speechwriters more important, not less. The public has never been exposed to so many messages, and public figures have rarely had so little time to make their case. In such an environment, the value of original, clever writing — especially writing that conveys character with
concision and flair — increases hugely.
Many an unlikely political resurrection has begun with ink from a speechwriter’s pen. Three years ago, after a bruising first year as leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer pinpointed his Labour Party conference speech as an opportunity to turn things around. Critics had cast him as wooden, grey, cautious. Which meant the speech (full disclosure: our company wrote it) needed to be colourful and surprising. We included a joke: “My Dad was a toolmaker. And so, in a sense, is Boris Johnson’s.” We weren’t sure if he’d use it — but he did. It featured in the largely glowing write ups and was an important moment in the long, slow fightback that culminated in victory this summer. A good speechwriter can do what no machine reliably can: surprise. The best speeches expand our sense of who a speaker is. You can, of course, go too far. The words you put in someone’s mouth ought to plausibly belong there. But if you get it right, a speech will deepen, expand and sometimes completely transform perceptions of a speaker. There are few better recent examples than the speech Kamala Harris gave at the DNC in August. The address was especially important because, compared to most presidential candidates, she was
still relatively unknown. Many Americans had a vague sense that she was kind of progressive. Many had no view of her at all. The speech made a brilliant play for the political centre. Like Barack Obama in 2008, she flipped attempts to “other” her by framing her unlikely story as only possible in America. She eschewed grievance or identity politics and instead gave an uplifting account of her life — from McDonalds to the White House — grounded in a love of her country. You may debate the validity of that argument but it is a winning one for the American electorate — and certainly not something a machine could pull off.
A month before Harris’s big speech, Trump came close to achieving a similar feat of redefinition. Days after a failed assassination attempt, the stage at the RNC was set for a conciliatory address that united his MAGA base with Trumpaverse mainstream Republicans. Ahead of the speech, his team insisted Trump was a changed man. Expect a message of unity, they said. It was going well, until he abandoned the autocue. As one journalist said: “The ‘new’ Donald Trump soothed and silenced the nation for 28 minutes last night. Then the old Trump returned and bellowed, barked and bored America for 64 minutes more.” Should’ve stuck to the script, Donald.
People are sacrificing traditional pastimes such as reading fiction for productivity-boosting pursuits. ANNA MOLONEY defends idleness against the cult of self-betterment
In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a long and important ritual of making pieces of sand art called mandalas, in which monks intricately and painstakingly assemble millions of grains of sand to form precise geometric designs memorised from Buddhist texts. The process can take several weeks to complete due to the intricacy of the patterns. Traditionally, even the sand itself is made by the monks, ground from calcite stones collected from the mountains and combined with coloured dyes.
Once the design is finished, after days or weeks of devotion, the mandala is destroyed in one swift sweep, representing the transitory nature of the material world; in other words, the whole process is a big waste of time.
I am no monk, but time-wasting is something I can vouch for and here, even in the productivity-driven west, I believe I have found my own type of mandala: reading books and never thinking about them again. This is a strange affliction, considering I am a bookish person, have two literary degrees, and even call myself the books editor of this fine magazine. And yet, for as long as I can remember, I have regularly suffered from such literary amnesia, where I can read a book, immensely enjoy it, and then immediately sweep all traces of it away from my mind as I shut the final page. Plot, characters, morals, mysteries, favourite quotes inhaled and then instantly forgotten. It is something I used to begrudge, and for a while was determined to amend by cataloguing every book I read and accompanying thought I had, but I have come to change my mind. Reading can be leisure at its purest –moment-driven, devoid of output – what some may simply call reading for pleasure. But that is a dying pastime. As recently highlighted by the Reading Agency, more than a third of UK adults have given up the habit of reading for pleasure, while the number of adults who say they have never been regular readers has increased by 88 per cent in just the last 10 years. The usual suspects – a lack of time, the distraction of social media, dwindling attention spans –were all cited for the drop, but there was another concerning cause for the lack of motivation: put simply, a belief that reading
for pleasure was a waste of time. Indeed, of those who said they never read routinely for pleasure, almost half regularly chose to read the news instead, a finding the report called “consistent with the group’s motivations for reading – for specific information only”. These readers, it seems at least semantically right to diagnose, opt to read for pain. Such utilitarianism may explain the rising tide of how-to books, titles which brandish their use-oriented credentials: How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, How to Be a Citizen, How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down, How to Make Sure You Are Never Wasting Your Precious Time on Earth Doing Anything For Nothing In Exchange. The problem is more pronounced among men – ‘straight men don’t read novels’ became popular online discourse this year – who, thanks to the industrious Victorians, have been conditioned to shudder at such frivolity. In the 19th century, reading novels was the “province of those whose time lacks
market value,” according to literary critic Leah Price. Reading books about Fact, in contrast, could be justified as having a determinable return on the investment of time. The same holds true today not only in our choice of reading material – books about AI are currently top of the City’s reading list, according to a bookseller at Daunt Books Cheapside – but more widely in any use of our free time, which we seem to be increasingly determined to squeeze for tangible output.
Dr Daniel Glazer, a clinical psychologist, told me he was concerned that such “lack of unapologetic play” was fuelling increased anxiety, burnout and generalised restlessness, with hobbies having become “self-indulgent luxuries rather than healthy expressions of autonomy”. Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life, countless gurus may tell us, but it’s possible that filing your taxes for your passion project yoga course could reduce the relaxation. “The cult of hustling has people convinced every scrap of discretionary time must be monetized or tangibly ‘productive’. Idleness has become suspect, and leisure stigmatised,” he described, honing in on a broader issue: the dying art of idleness.
Its decline has been a long time coming. Almost a century ago, British philosopher Bertrand Russell mounted a valiant defence – his 1935 essay In Praise of Idleness in which he aimed “to induce good young men to do nothing” by extolling the virtues of laziness and leisure – but it failed to shift the dial. More recently, other campaigns have been launched: did you know that lying down on the sofa after work can reduce your blood pressure? Did you know daydreaming can sharpen creativity? Did you know that, done right, proper rest will make you more productive? Did you know that Russell himself, our supposed idling champion, was, quite frankly, embarrassingly industrious, writing more than 60 books and 2,000 articles during his lifetime?
So, I’m afraid I must refuse to contribute. Sloth hath no martyr: it is for the layabouts, the loungers, the thumb-twiddlers, the ne’er do wells.
Read this article once, rip it up, and join the ranks.
One of the undeniable social media success stories, Linkedin is an increasingly weird place, a mash-up of unsolicited advice and confessional ‘business learnings’, says LUCY KENNINGHAM
An anal fissure. You might assume, if it happened to you, you’d keep it on the downlow. Stay in bed, tell people you had “an operation”, maybe book a couple of weeks off work using a discreet doctor’s note.
But the modern business influencer would do no such thing. No, they would instead go straight to Linkedin, cannula still pumping morphine into their veins, and write a post about their Learnings from the experience (in this case endurance and, ahem, humility).
This is a true story about life on Linkedin in 2024, a time when nothing is off limits and insight can be gleaned from almost any situation, however outlandish or banal. A marriage to the love of your life becomes a chance to describe your brand new “strategic partnership”. Been dumped? What a great case study for improving customerclient relations. A death in the family? Surely an excuse to reinforce the importance of staying upbeat during B2B sales.
Keep scrolling and you’ll be bombarded with wisdom about Why Retirement Is a Scam, how to click effortlessly into Founder Mode (and secure $5m of investment through sheer vibes) and what PRs can learn from the Oasis reunion (“There’s ‘Definitely, Maybe’ an angle, if you look hard enough”).
Linkedin was founded in 2003, nine months before Facebook, in Silicon Valley (no surprises there). In 2016 Microsoft bought it for $26bn. Now, almost a third of US adults use the networking site and it boasts more than a billion users worldwide. The volume of posts has grown by 41 per cent over the past decade. Its comrades have fallen. Facebook is populated by your boomer uncle and his mates. Instagram is the domain of lifestyle influencers. Twitter is on its
knees, begging for mercy.
Linkedin, meanwhile, reigns supreme, an unlikely victor in the social media wars. This is largely, I think, down to the increasingly popular idea that you are your CV, that productivity is the ultimate goal, that we could all be rich and successful if only we could crack the business code (which may or may not be connected to one’s anal fissure).
You could point to the fact journalists
Been dumped? That’s a case study for customer-client relations. Death in the family? An excuse to write about staying upbeat during B2B sales
have been looting our lives for content for centuries. When I did jury service and had an existential crisis after convicting a murderer to 27 years in jail, what did I do? Turn it into an article. When my parents nearly got scammed into giving over money to a stranger, I used the incident as fodder for a column. Social media gurus and journalists, saddening though it is for me to admit, share many of the same toxic traits: narcissism, oversharing, the amplification of one’s character to grotesque proportions to make a point. But at least in journalism, we claim to do it for noble causes: “freedom of speech” or “the public’s right to know” or – if you’re a long-form writer like me and others in this magazine – the even more nebulous pursuit of ‘Art’. Over on Linkedin, people are exposing their nether-region-nasties purely for engagement, and that cannot be an expression of a healthy society. By the by, why not flick to page 48 to read my searing and deeply confessional article about my session with the UK’s highest paid life coach? I’ll probably repost it to my Linkedin, replete with lessons about my personal development programme. Perhaps we’re not that different after all…
He’s the man who founded Seedlip and brought low-and-no spirits to the masses. Now Ben Branson is brewing something new in his countryside laboratory...
Words by ADAM BLOODWORTH
Through the launch of Seedlip, Ben Branson established a reputation as the founding father of the nonalcoholic scene. With his range of botanical spirits, he showed how grown-up drinks needn’t be inextricably linked to poison. But in 2019, the farming boy from North Lincolnshire sold his majority stake to Diageo for an undisclosed, but undoubtedly huge, amount (the brand is now worth over £8bn globally; Branson is tight-lipped about the sale price). It bought Branson time to dream up Pollen Projects, the brand he believes can reimagine the alcoholfree scene afresh, again.
It’s the type of oven-hot day where just getting the train out of London induces clothes-to-skin sweat, but the wildflower meadows wrapped around Branson’s futuristic glass-walled testing centre remind me that heat in the countryside is different to heat in the city. No wonder he finds this an easier place to think. Here, the high-tech laboratory is built in the middle of a field replete with colourful meadow-flowers that shake in the wind. “I recently discovered we have this incredible black walnut tree in the forest,” he says, gesturing to a far corner of the 25 acres of wildland in which we’re standing. When he talks about trees, Branson’s eyes bulge wide like a Disney prince.
So, why are we here? After five years of ruminating,
Branson is having his second go at scene-leading innovation, this time by extracting flavour from thousands of types of wood. “We’ve explored them medicinally, but we’ve not explored trees for taste and flavour, and that becomes incredibly exciting,” says the 41-year-old, dressed in an expensive-looking forest green tee that blends into the landscape.
After a decade as the posterboy for low-and-no, you might imagine Branson to be somewhat jaded. “Seedlip led the way but things have moved on a lot since then,” Laura Willoughby, the founder of London’s only booze-free bar, told City AM Some experts say there is “no evidence” alcohol-free reduces drinking. But Branson says he’s just getting started.
He passes me a dram of dark liquid he calls Sylva. I’m the first journalist to try the product, and that feels like a privilege, but also a bit like Christmas morning when you unwrap gifts and say they’re great whether you like them or not. My first thought was that it has strength, the North African paduk tree wood offering a flavour profile I haven’t tasted before. Could this be the next frontier in alcohol-free drinking?
We walk by the water, through a forest and past pigs that’ll soon provide “500 sausages for Christmas.” We stop to check for sounds on his bird watching app. He clutches that black walnut tree, rips a clutch of leaves, and presents them to me like Rafiki holding up Simba. I take a sniff, and the collection of spindly branches
does indeed smell great. A tent under one tree is where he and his daughter go camping when the clutches of his country pile feel boringly grown up.
There are over 73,000 types of trees Branson could test for flavour, but the focus will be on British varieties. “Knowing that 9,000 trees haven’t even been discovered yet, and celebrating the magic of that kind of brilliant diversity of provenance and flavour is fascinating to me,” he says. “We’re trying to find the most efficient and effective way to make the best dark non-alcoholic experience possible.”
Seedlip launched in 2015 as the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirit, and there are now hundreds of competitors, particularly in white spirits. The rise of brands has led to an inevitable quality issue, believes Branson, given the industry is unregulated. It is a poisoned chalice: experimentation is rife because of the lack of rules, so we’re living through non-alc’s Prohibition, but then again, cowboys are trying to make a quick buck with bad products. “I’m not seeing in dark, non alcoholic liquids the same level of craft, attention, provenance, process as we see in fantastic dark alcohol.”
How on earth do they choose which to test from 73,000 trees? Local trees, exotic wood suppliers to the musical instrument world, and samples sent by industry colleagues are in the queue, including a recent piece of thermo-treated, toasted ash that smells like
coffee and Christmas pudding. “That’s something we want to explore.” Next year Pollen Projects hopes to launch laboratories in New York and Kyoto, focusing on local wood. The timber isn’t always terribly interesting. Describing a recent trial with mulberry, Branson slows his speech. “It was amazing from a flavour perspective, but it didn’t work. The liquid became really cloudy and wouldn’t clarify so we had to park that.”
Bottles of booze are lined up on shelves around the laboratory like trophies, but Branson hasn’t touched a drop in over 10 years (he works with one full-time colleague, researcher Jack Wareing, who isn’t sober). “What we are trying to achieve
is a liquid you can sip that’s grown up, a liquid that has complexity and character and body and depth and a really amazing finish.” The industry talks about a ‘burn’. “I don’t think anybody loves the burn of alcohol, but if it’s not there, you miss it.” How does the actual science work? It’s complicated, but distilled to GCSE level: wood is cut into chips, then baked in an oven. It then goes through a process called sonic maturation, which uses oxygen, pressure, heat and ultrasound to extract flavour and colour. Oxygenated, pressured stainless steel kegs (their version of a barrel) is filled with grain distillate and wood and aged in an ultrasonic maturation chamber. Ultrasound waves crash into each other to produce high energy and small bursts of force tens of thousands of times per second, and these waves extract the flavour and colour. “This effectively means we can do what a traditional barrel does, but rather than waiting for years to achieve the required flavour we can get there in a matter of days.”
We have more options for what to eat and drink than we know what to do with and our repertoire has never been more fragmented
I admit this explanation went completely over my head and Branson laughs like he knew I was about to say that. Put simply, the complex procedure isn’t meant to be understood by plebs like me. So I choose a metaphor of my own. “You’re a bit like Willy Wonka,” I say. The steel kegs, pipettes and glass filtration devices remind me of Mike TeeVee’s ‘I’m going too high!’ scene in the 1971 Gene Wilder film. “I haven’t got any Oompa Loompas,” he says. “But I love that story, the imagination of Roald Dahl, I
love that world. We’re trying to do things people haven’t done before. Maybe not to the same Everlasting Gobstopper extreme, but we are saying ‘what if?’”
What does all this blue sky thinking mean for Seedlip, given Branson still has a 20 per cent stake? The week I visit, he has been filming promotional videos for them, weeks before the crucial launch of Pollen Projects’ first product, Sylva. It must be “challenging” being the face of both, I ask, diplomatically. Branson laughs. “Yeah. I’m @seedlipben on Instagram,” he says, before going into rehearsed PR speak. “Seedlip is still not even nine years old yet, the category is just getting going and I still feel like we’re literally only just scratching the surface on what’s possible with Seedlip as a brand and a business.” I say Seedlip feels like yesterday’s news and Branson laughs: “It’s amazing that nine years is yesterday’s news.”
It’s not all wildflower meadows on the low-and-no scene: some dissenting voices dislike how conglomerate-backed drinks like Seedlip are becoming ubiquitous behind bars and supermarket shelves. They say the power of backers like Diageo makes it hard for independent brands to find space. Rob Fink, founder of the Big Drop Brew Company, believes the challenge for independent drinks brands is how to convince supermarkets, bars and restaurants that consumers want a choice between brands owned by global megacompanies and independent ones.
“Sometimes the only way to prove that is to be on the shelves, or in the taps and demonstrate a good rate of sale. But more often than not, it is too expensive to get there in the first place.”
Ellie Webb, founder of Caleno Drinks, believes large spirits corporations “always” hold more competitive power because they are “able to leverage the might and scale of their large brands, to secure opportunities for their non-alcoholic variations,” but she sees a silver lining. “Bigger corporations can help grow visibility of the no-and-low category through big budget advertising campaigns and sponsorships, whilst independents can drive innovation, new thinking and ways of doing things.”
A week later in London, Branson and I are drinking coffee near King’s Cross. He’s
just finished a podcast recording where he talks about working and living with ADHD when I bring up the topic of accessibility for new makers. He answers by calling out another problem. Has it got harder for new producers? Does Seedlip have too much power? “Yes, and no,” he says. “I mean, it might interest you that there’s independent non-alcoholic spirits buying their way into bars, which is actually really unhelpful. Independents have launched with deep pockets that are just spending their way in.”
He doesn’t immediately appear to have much sympathy for the argument about Diageo dominance. “There is enough opportunity and diversity and variety within non alcoholic that bars should take it seriously.” He says that there is now a market for low-and-no, compared to when he started, and that he helps independent makers when they approach him.
Surprisingly, Branson also argues other brands may be being too experimental.
“Maybe what they’re doing is too dissimilar to Seedlip. Bartenders want to have products that people know.”
“We are saturated in our choices of what we can eat and drink. We have more options than we know what to do with and our repertoire of what we drink has never been more fragmented, we are more promiscuous than ever in our drinking repertoire so it’s more competitive than ever.”
And there it was: a glimpse of the steely determination Branson utilised to kickstart a new global market nearly 10 years ago.
We are well into Starbucks pumpkin spice latte season and I for one will be openly celebrating this seasonal joy
Nothing seems to irk certain corners of the internet more than the humble pumpkin spice latte (PSL). The sneering usually comes from a certain type of person – mostly coffee snobs and boomers – and it’s almost always aimed at women. Depressingly, our hot drinks now come with a shot of misogyny.
In summer, we’re slapped with the ‘basic bitch’ label for liking a chilled rosé; in autumn, it’s because we prefer certain flavours of syrup. As if life isn’t exhausting enough for women in 2024, now I’m supposed to feel ashamed for enjoying a drink that, while it may glow like toxic waste, impacts nothing but my pancreas.
When Starbucks announced its “autumn menu” – a bit of an overstatement – this summer, countless tweets condemned those of us traipsing to Starbucks to sit our PSL arses down. “It’s August! You’ve still got your Birkenstocks on! It’s 72 per cent humidity outside!”
Undeterred, we ordered our lurid orange beverages on ice.
I concede that guzzling cinnamon-spiced drinks in summer is a bit like seeing Mini Eggs in January but it didn’t stop me from rolling up
to the drive-through on launch day. There’s usually only about eight weeks before Christmas-themed hot chocolates bump PSLs off the menu for another year, so I welcomed its early arrival and drank two before the calendar hit September.
But this wasn’t the only reason I hopped on the bandwagon – I was ready to embrace what PSL season *signifies*. To paraphrase Ned Stark, it means autumn is coming and, damn it, that brings me joy. I love nothing more than packing away the summer duvet and getting my heated blanket out. It’s the perfect excuse to buy a new cardigan; to commence my annual Gilmore Girls marathon and daydream about living in a small town in Connecticut. It isn’t just a drink – it’s a psychological shift. If that makes me a walking cliché, then so be it.
No longer will I feel “less” for liking this weirdly controversial style of coffee. Where once I’d mumble my order at the counter, feeling faintly embarrassed, this year I’m posting each comforting cup on Instagram with a tongue-in-cheek #cosyvibes hashtag. Because if I get some tiny joy from a seasonal treat then, I ask, what’s it to you? Life’s hard enough – let me enjoy my pumpkin spice latte in peace.
The
most famous restaurant in the world is closing later this year – but in Copenhagen,
it won’t be missed.
JUSTINE GOSLING speaks to the chefs taking New Nordic cuisine to the next level
For decades, Noma has been one of the most coveted restaurants on the planet.
It birthed ‘new Nordic’ cuisine in 2003 and stamped the small Danish capital on the gastronomic map, winning the world’s best restaurant award multiple times and holding Michelin stars since 2008. Its stratospheric success was led by head chef and co-founder René Redzepi, now one of Denmark’s most famous people, who in 2012 was named in Time Magazine as one of its 100 most influential people. Redzepi’s legacy can be tasted all over Denmark and in restaurants across the world, with a legion of Noma alumni having gone on to open their own dining venues. But last year, as it was celebrating its 20th birthday, Noma announced it will close at the end of 2024. Redzepi told the New York Times that “it’s unsustainable, financially and emotionally, as an employer and as a human being, it just doesn’t work.” He has previously admitted abusing staff and harnessing a toxic culture of burn out and aggression in his kitchen. Some have even suggested Noma’s closure spells the death of fine dining as we know it.
In Copenhagen, however, Noma’s closure is considered a new beginning. With this monolithic culinary behemoth out the way, the spotlight may be allowed to shine on others, many of whom are leading a diverse rebirth of Nordic cuisine; and demand for experiential Danish fine dining has never been stronger. According to the Danish tourism board, a third of tourists visit the country for its gastronomy. This year was one of Denmark’s most successful in the Michelin Guide, with 44 stars awarded to 31 restaurants, 26 of which were given to 15 restaurants in Copenhagen alone, and the city has entries on the worlds 50 best restaurants list, too.
This year Jordnær, founded and run by husband-and-wife team Tina and Eric Vildgaard, picked up its third Michelin star. Jordnær focuses on sourcing the finest seafood to create exquisitely intricate and elegantly crafted dishes that rank among the most beautiful and delicious I’ve ever tried. Just a couple of weeks after the awards ceremony I sat down with Eric, who is hugely optimistic about the future of Danish cuisine. Jordnær, which translates as “down to earth”, is an accurate description of the unpretentious couple. They understand that, as one of the most awarded restaurants
in Denmark, they can be architects of change. Staff at Alchemist only work four days a week, and the restaurant closes at the weekend so staff can be with their families.
When talking about toxic kitchen culture, Eric says: “I feel a responsibility to eradicate that. I lead by example and will use my restaurant to train and send out alumni of a new breed that are ambassadors for building a respectful kitchen culture.” He points to restaurant Aure, which won its first Michelin star this year just 81 days after opening on the other side of the city, and who’s head chef used to work in Eric’s kitchen.
One of the most talked about restaurants in Copenhagen is two Michelin stared Alchemist, where a reservation is one of the most sought-after in the world. Demand is such that Alchemist currently has around 50,000 on its waiting list. The food is almost a side show to the spectacle, which takes guests on an often-uncomfortable educational journey through food production, something unexpected from a traditional fine dining restaurant (although it hardly qualifies as such). Dishes, or ‘impressions’ as head chef and owner Rasmus Munk prefers to call them, educate on some of the world’s darkest realities, such as climate
change and environmental destruction, child slavery, farming and organ donation.
I can’t say it was pleasant eating a beautiful, freezedried butterfly to exemplify a sustainable protein source, or a crispy fried chicken foot to emphasize that we should be eating every part of a farmed animal, but what an experience it was. I wonder how many guests use the edible QR code in the heart shaped dessert made of pig’s blood to sign up for organ donation? The restaurant also runs a homeless person’s food kitchen, and an experimental lab named Spora to create cheap proteins through technology that, hopefully, one day, can be scaled to feed millions.
It’s gastronomic art and global activism on a plate, feeding many more than those who pay hundreds to dine. “Alchemist serves as a platform to highlight some of the world’s big issues to a new audience, in an unexpected, artistic and perhaps more digestible way,” says Munk.
Shuwen Tu, sommelier at Michelin star restaurant Marchal, housed in Copenhagen’s most expensive hotel, D’ Angleterre, explained why he chose to work in Copenhagen, having spent time in restaurants all over the world: “Here, fine dining is exciting, adventurous,
and constantly innovating. It’s unpretentious and fun.”
Mikkel Ustrup is the director at Nimb in Tivoli, the much-loved vintage amusement park in the centre of Copenhagen. In the aftermath of Covid, when the food and tourism industry was on its knees, Ustrup had the vision to open a revolving restaurant in the unused Japanese pagoda, featuring an ever-changing roster of visiting chefs. Now in its fourth year, the pop-up concept makes Michelin dining more accessible, with a scaled down menu of fewer courses. The night we dined at two Michelin star German pop-up Ösch Noir, the much loved Danish queen Margrethe II was eating at the restaurant. Unlike us, I doubt she rode the roller coaster after her meal.
Such is the prestige and dynamism of Copenhagen’s food scene, Ustrup has no problem attracting top chefs for an extended visit to the Danish capital. “It’s an ideas exchange,” he says. “I want the pop-up to champion and bring greater diversity to gastronomy in Denmark. There’s no rules with food here, unlike other places that are quite stuck in their ways. We are speaking to restaurants in India, China, and Africa. There’s no other city doing this. The fine dining scene isn’t dying. On the contrary, it’s never been more exciting.”
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TikTok can bestow sharp and unexpected success upon cafes and restaurants. But what happens when the algorithm moves on, asks SADIA NOWSHIN
In March 2022, I visited fish and chip takeaway Binley Mega Chippy in my hometown of Coventry 10 minutes after it had opened for dinner, joining a growing queue of people snaking out across a tarmac car park on the side of a busy A road. A line of cars waiting for a parking spot were blocking traffic on a road usually populated only by commuters navigating Binley’s concrete jungle of roadworks and roundabouts.
One local in front of me was disgruntled at having to stand for twice as long for his regular order as crowds of tweens waited eagerly, phone cameras at the ready.
For weeks, people from all over the world travelled for hours to visit this nondescript chippy. Cars beeped joyfully as they drove past, while teenage boys belted out the anthem that had shot the seemingly unexceptional take-away to stardom.
The Binley Mega Chippy team (and Coventry locals) were baffled by the sudden surge in popularity. Its fame came thanks to a catchy jingle that had gone viral on TikTok. Created by someone unrelated to the business – using the app’s in-built AI voice generator – the tune consists of just three lyrics: “Binley Mega Chippy”, repeated four times to a tune reminiscent of ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. It doesn’t take long to pick up. At one point, the chippy’s owner told the BBC that he was doing 10 times his normal trade.
Two years on, there’s no queue outside when I return to the takeaway. There’s no jingle to be heard, either; just the buzzing of the light flickering over the counter
and the quiet chatter of the couple of customers waiting. You’re spoilt for choice with space in the car park — but the roadworks that were complicating the junction two years ago are still there.
“It was really tough to handle at the time — [but looking back] everything that happened was positive,” says Vishal Sharma – sporting a Binley Mega Chippy t-shirt once coveted by thousands – who worked at the chippy through its viral moment.
The shop did everything it could to capitalise on its TikTok fans. Redbubble and Etsy pages sold merch ranging from T-shirts bearing the chippy’s name to cushions and shower curtains, while its social media pages encouraged followers to create Binley Mega Chippy fan art. Even now, the legend lives on. “There was a guy from Australia in just a few weeks ago,” Sharma says. “He was wearing his own T-shirt with: ‘It’s paradise, but I’ve never been there: Binley Mega Chippy’ written on it.”
Binley Mega Chippy isn’t the only place to enjoy a brief period of TikTok fame: Gen Z seems to love platforming run-of-the-mill establishments, leading to a sudden and often baffling rise to internet stardom.
Ben Newman, known as Spudman, runs a Tamworthbased jacket potato stand of the same name, which has 3.5m followers on TikTok. Giant letters displaying his adopted name adorn the truck in at least five places, along with cartoon avatars of the man himself.
Newman, a larger than life character who sports a pink mo-hawk, realised his social media efforts had paid off just after Christmas 2023, when one of his videos hit over a million views. Since then, he’s amassed over 70m likes, and his most popular — in which he prepares a cheesy baked potato for his last customer of the day — has over 111.5m views.
Virality sparked a wave of new customers who flocked to the stand, including influencers Newman had followed for years. It even earned him a feature on national radio. “The most surreal moment was having a potato taken down to Scott Mills for his Radio 2 show by a Tamworth train driver,” he says.
Like Binley Mega Chippy, he became an international hit, attracting tourists looking for ‘authentic’ British cuisine: “We’ve had people travel from all over the world for a potato, from [as far afield as] Malaysia and America. People greet me in the street like I’m an old friend!”
Chasing TikTok stardom involves smart forward thinking. British Patagonia, a cafe based in Islington, saw a surge in custom after its summer croissant/ice cream
hybrid, the ‘ice crone’, went viral in 2023.
“I spent a few weeks thinking about the product: how to serve it, name it, decorate it. The ice crone was planned and designed in every way — but the popularity that came after was definitely unexpected,” says founder Matias Barbat.
In the absence of a marketing budget, he had initially invited a few microinfluencers to try the product in return for TikTok videos. It blew up and soon bigger TikTok creators were coming of their own volition, dragging their hordes of followers with them.
The cafe, which only opened in 2022, struggled to keep up with the surge in demand: “We started selling 150 to 200 ice crones a day — for us, that was a huge struggle. We weren’t prepared for such demand as we didn’t have much structure. Along the way, we started to get a system in place and found better ways to produce and cope with the demand,” says Barbat.
It’s a luxurious problem to have — but TikTok virality also comes with issues more serious than stock shortages.
For Spudman, the negative side of fame hit him on a personal level. “[There were] fake Google reviews, fake EHO [environmental health officer] complaints and trolls,” he says. “There have also been issues with certain creators who are toxic, creating videos with false information, and negative people from the past doing the same for their own gain.” As his following has grown, so too has the trolling — so much so that his wife has stepped away from the business’ social media after struggling with the negativity.
Charlie Howes, CEO of digital marketing agency Klatch, says the dark side of
virality is often overlooked: “The sudden influx of customers can strain resources, lead to long wait times and possibly result in a dip in service quality if the establishment isn’t prepared,” he says. “The attention may be short-lived — if not managed well, the business might struggle to maintain the initial hype.”
Indeed, just as suddenly as TikTok fame hits, the fickle algorithm has a tendency to turn its attention to something else, leaving businesses high and dry.
And though Newman continues to steadily grow his Spudman TikTok following, the effects of his sudden virality have also started to wane. But rather than lament the fleeting fame, he remains positive. “Even though I have peaked and am regularly told I have ‘fallen off’, I remind people that I have done more than most; I am still busy at the trailer and people still visit and support us, and I really appreciate that.”
While TikTok is often criticised for the
We started selling 150 to 200 ‘ice crones’ a day — for us, that was a huge struggle. We weren’t prepared for such demand
toxicity that can emerge from its depths, the brief popularity that these independent establishments enjoy — inexplicable as it may be — has given business owners a boost in tough economic times. “With rising expenses, it’s difficult to keep up,” says Barbat; “[The ice crone] definitely helped to sustain the business.”
And despite the downsides, TikTok has allowed Newman to deliver a positive message to an audience he wouldn’t otherwise have had access to — both about his business and his personal health struggles. On his TikTok profile — listed just after a collection of videos documenting his trips to the cash and carry — sits a playlist where he receives kidney dialysis and talks through the process. “It has given me a platform to raise awareness about kidney disease,” he says. “I feel I have created a positive community, both within the potato world but also within my local community.”
No one does beauty like we do.
Wine writer HANNAH CROSBIE interviews her friend and comedian GRACE CAMPBELL in Soho’s BAR CRISPIN about the changing face of social media, the pull of TV and getting high in Edinburgh. Pictures by GRETEL ENSIGNIA
THE MEAL: BRITISH CHEESE PLATTER SOURDOUGH WITH DUTCH BUTTER PUMPKIN WITH GOAT’S CURD PRAWN SANDO
HANNAH CROSBIE: So the last time we saw each other was that hilarious night at the Edinburgh Fringe. We went to Noodles & Dumplings and had champagne and Smirnoff ices.
GRACE CAMPBELL: Then we went and got margaritas and went to see Reuben Kaye and got high.
HC: Hahaha, we did. But not as high as our friends who found themselves on Arthur’s Seat at eight o’clock in the morning.
GC: Reuben is so fun, we always just have such crazy chemistry. He was on my new podcast Late to the Party. It’s sort of evolving as I’m going, but with Reuben
Brits like to think of ourselves as pioneers of comedy so it’s a bit pathetic that we’re not there to support new acts
we figured out what his ideal party is. We had to cut out some bits as I’m trying to get it on TV.
HC: There’s always that fine line. You want to be realistic with what everyone’s getting up to at parties, but for the BBC, maybe not. Maybe for Channel 4.
GC: Yeah, people tell me all the time to be honest, open and wild, but I understand why I have to be careful. I don’t want to not go on TV because I tell stories about drugs. That makes me sound like a raging drug addict (I’m not)!
HC: Ha, I understand. You’re big online, but would you like to do more TV?
GC: TV is really good for money and stability but the comedians selling the most tickets are huge online first. Before, you’d do Live at the Apollo, then you’d sell out a tour: everyone was finding new people from TV and radio, but it’s not the case anymore. The comedy scene has
become so much more saturated. In the UK there aren’t enough opportunities for new comedians on television. I do think something in live comedy is going to change soon. The power needs to be put back in artists’ hands. I say I don’t care but obviously deep down I do want to be on TV.
HC: It’s ironic given that Brits like to think of ourselves as pioneers of comedy. We have so many successful exports as a country, it’s a bit pathetic that we’re not there to support people who are up and coming.
GC: That’s why social media is amazing. It’s still a great way for new talent to get noticed. But what do you do when you’ve been noticed? That’s the challenge.
HC: So you’ve got the tour coming up and the new podcast... You’re busy!
GC: I’m very excited. It’s going to be like nothing I’ve done before. I’m touring all major UK cities from Southampton to
I’ve really changed. A few years ago I was like ‘don’t tame me, I will swear if I want to, I don’t give a f**k about Ofcom.’
London, Leeds and Liverpool, Exeter, Bristol and Coventry. In December I’ll end with a couple of European dates in Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin.
People have been amazing in supporting me getting this far and I’m really thankful to everyone who’s sent me lovely messages. I’m excited to talk shit about my life. As for the podcast, there have been some great guests. Me and the comedian Joanne McNally absolutely died laughing. There are loads of other guests too, including Paul Black, Zeze Mills and my tour support act Christopher Mills. Anyway, tell me about how’s everything gone with your new book?
HC: Corker has been a really interesting one, instead of writing for a paper or for a brand, it’s been… just me, which has left me feeling quite vulnerable at times. But it’s ultimately been so gratifying connecting with an incredible, inquisitive, fun audience as a result.
My proudest moment besides actually writing it will be taking it to
Cheltenham Literature Festival. I volunteered there fresh out of sixth form and it was such an incredible moment that solidified what it was I wanted to do — write. It’ll be a wonderful full circle moment for me. Aren’t you off to do Live at the Apollo?!
GC: It used to be a dream to be on Live at the Apollo, but now I’m just doing my own solo show at the Apollo instead! Maybe it’s because I’ve calmed down a lot and TV execs like my style now. When I started doing comedy I used to be so raucous; I’ve really changed. A few years ago I was like ‘don’t tame me, I will swear if I want to, I don’t give a f**k about Ofcom.’
HC: I’d like to do more TV too. I’ve grown up seeing people on screens that I don’t see myself in, so I want to be the person to change that. There’s all this incredible new wine and food and drink talent but they’re on social media rather than traditional media like television. It really irks me when people are snotty about social media. How else are you supposed to get seen?
GC: I’m loving your wine memes…
HC: I’ve always been unafraid to talk
about wine the way I want to talk about it. People may find that cringe: me being unapologetic, unashamed, sweary, vaguely gross, oddly sexual. When I was little I was freaking out that no one liked me, but now I have embraced my weirdness as an adult and quite frankly, f**k anyone who can’t handle it. A girl can be weird and hot at the same time.
GC: I don’t think your content is cringe at all, I think it’s great.
HC: Thank you. I’ve started to take my own advice over the past year: I’m now not taking criticism from people who don’t know me personally. At the end of the day, I’m posting cringe wine content and naked memes. It’s not life and death!
l Hannah Crosbie’s book on wine, Corker, is available at all good bookshops. It is about which wine to match with life’s most important (and unimportant) events. Her writing can be found in many national newspapers. Grace Campbell starts her UK and European tour from 16 October running through to December. Her new podcast, Late to the Party, sees the comedian interview people she’d like to party with about their favourite ways to be hedonistic. She delivers chaos, life lessons and stories of nights out gone wrong. To book Bar Crispin go to barcrispin.com
TOM CURRAN tells us what he would eat for his last meal on earth, from his own blend espresso to the barbecued meats from his childhood
Igrew up from the age of six in Zimbabwe so we ate a lot of meat and spent a lot of time cooking on the barbecue. It was all quite simple but delicious food: chicken, veggies, nice salads, that sort of thing. My mum and dad would both do a bit of cooking – they can make a mean soup too, like a minestrone with all those beautiful goodies at the bottom. That carried through a bit into adulthood. I’m not exactly Michelin level but I’m a pretty decent cook and I can turn my hand to quite a few dishes. I still cook a lot of meat and I think my roast is pretty unbeatable. I did an event for the charity Chance to Shine, called Chance to Dine, where different people cooked each course of a meal – mine was the roast. I have a few other dishes in the locker, too – I make some decent pasta, some nice salads. The staples, you
I play in the Hundred and we tend to eat out quite a lot as a team. I’m lucky that I don’t have to watch my calorie intake too much so I can just enjoy the food
know, but done well. Nothing too fancy. What I like most is eating out, though. I play in the Hundred and we tend to eat out quite a lot as a team. I’m lucky that I don’t have to watch my calorie intake too much so I can just enjoy the food. I still like to eat healthily but I don’t have to stress about it too much. Even when I’m at home I like to eat out a lot. Going out for breakfast is my big thing and I do it whenever I can. I’m also massively into coffee – so much so I have my own coffee brand, Naked Ground. I really got into that world when I was touring in Australia, where they take coffee really seriously. It’s not just the difference in quality, I fell in love with the whole culture around it. So I opened my own cafe and we started developing our own products and just grew it from there.
My last supper, then, is going to start with one of my own Naked Ground espressos – I’ll have to really savour it if it’s going to be my last one because it’s brilliant. For my starter I’m going to have an entire
breakfast: some nice seeded sourdough bread with smashed avo, made with lemon vinegar and a bit of pomegranate and feta. You’re going to have to load it up very generously. On the side you can stick on some halloumi, sausage, bacon, all those goodies. It’s the kind of breakfast they do really well in Sydney, although I’ll bring in some Burford Brown eggs to get that lovely dark orange yolk.
After that – and some more coffee – I’d have a selection of Japanese dishes, tapas style: sea bass ceviche, tuna tartare, the whole shebang. I’d get this made by Chotto Matte, this Japanese-Peruvian restaurant that I first went to for a birthday meal about six years ago and just loved.
I’ll probably take another break here as this is a lot of food, but I’d finish things off with a chocolate fondant, all gooey and warm inside, served with vanilla ice cream. I like to keep things simple with desserts and this is as good as they come as far as I’m concerned.
To drink I’ll get a bottle of white wine to go with the fish then a selection of cocktails to have with the dessert. By this point I’d be half asleep anyway I reckon, so hopefully whatever comes next would happen when I was already out for the count. You’ve made me really hungry – I’m off to find something to eat!
l For more information on Tom’s coffee brand Naked Ground go to nakedground.coffee
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Opposite: Cush Jumbo was the first black woman to play Hamlet in a major West End production; now she’s started a new podcast
She was the first black woman to play Hamlet in a major West End production, is a star of the big and small screens and has just launched one of the most exciting podcasts in years. STEVE DINNEEN chats to Cush Jumbo
There are two types of people: those who already know about Cush Jumbo, one of the finest British actors of her generation, and those who are soon to find out.
The star of wildly successful TV shows including The Good Wife, Criminal Record and Deadwater Fell, Jumbo cemented her A-List credentials when she became the first black woman to play Hamlet in a major production at the Young Vic in 2021.
Not content with conquering stage and screen, she recently launched her own podcast, Origins, in which she interviews people she admires about their “Sliding Doors” moments, when their lives could have taken very different paths. Despite it only launching last month, she’s already proven a seasoned journalist’s knack for teasing out stories from her guests. Anna Wintour – a mentor figure to Jumbo – confided that she was once fired from Harper’s Bazaar for being unable to pin a dress, while David Schwimmer gave up a rare Friends exclusive when he admitted his relationship with Matthew Perry wasn’t always as friendly as the show’s title might suggest. Jumbo arrives early for our interview at Soho’s Dean Street Townhouse. She looks every inch the off-duty actor, clad in denim dungarees but somehow making them look impossibly glamorous. With her trademark short-cropped blonde hair, she’s all crackling energy and megawatt smile; you can see why the New York Times once described her as a “cattle-prod wrapped in cotton candy” (something she says she came to take as a compliment).
It’s one of those days in London when it seems the rain will never stop, a thick, grey blanket hanging limply from the sky, Soho’s neon signs reflecting in the puddles on the street. Yet somehow Jumbo looks like she just stepped out of the green room, ready to play the part of Charming Interviewee. Over a leisurely, hour-long lunch she’s engaging and open, happy to weigh in on any
subject, speaking with the considered, gentle tone of a primary school teacher.
After quizzing the waiter on the menu’s vegetarian options she settles for a salad with a side of another salad, which makes me feel guilty about the giant curry that arrives on my side of the table. As she tucks into her slightly absurd pile of leaves, I wonder how she finds enough hours in the day to fit everything in.
“It’s hard,” she says matter of factly. “I’ve got a young son so I’m always trying to find a balance. This is why, historically, women have a career early in this business and then they drop off. You have to choose between the two: are you going to be a good parent or are you going to have a career? You can’t do both. It’s completely unrealistic to think you can do everything.”
She scoffs when I suggest she seems to be having her cake and eating it.
“I’m sitting here with you so I’m not taking my son to school for his first week. It’s not that I’m having my cake and eating it – I’m choosing which cake to eat.”
This strikes me as remarkably, unusually honest. Most people lie – to themselves, to others – about the reality of such trade-offs.
“Yeah, it’s hard to admit, particularly as a mum, that you feel guilty for not seeing your kid and choosing work. But I’m not keen on the particularly female thing that gets put out there, especially on social media, that it’s possible to do everything all the time, because it’s absolutely not possible. There are lots of ‘perfect’ mums on social media telling everybody that things are perfect, and I don’t think it’s healthy.”
The daughter of a Nigerian asylum seeker and a psychiatric nurse from Scunthorpe, Jumbo was raised in a block of flats in South London but travelled around a lot as a child. She tells me she went to “six or seven” different schools, which I suggest must have been tough for someone named Cush Jumbo. She laughs: “Yeah, as a kid you just want to feel like everyone else, you want to be called Jane Smith. Now I love it: if a casting director
Opposite: Cush Jumbo will star in the upcoming production
Historically, women have a career early in this business and then they drop off. You have to choose: are you going to be a good parent or are you going to have a career? You can’t do both
has met me, they know they’ve met me. There is no other Cush Jumbo in the whole world – I checked.”
While she says she had a happy childhood, her acting career certainly wasn’t handed to her on a plate. “I don’t come from money, so I’ve always worked really hard. I didn’t leave drama school and get a starring role in a Hollywood movie. I worked three jobs a week to pay the rent. I must have worked over a hundred jobs in my life. I taught, I waitressed, I cleaned toilets, I did market research, I sold pebble dash on people’s houses, I had a pancake store, I worked at a strip club – as a waitress, not a stripper.”
All of this gave her not only a prodigious work ethic but also a knack for making friends, a skill that has come in handy in her new role as journalist extraordinaire on Origins.
“I love talking to people. I’m very nosy. I’m a bit of a chatterbox, and I’ve often been told by other actors that, when we’re on downtime, they end up telling me something they didn’t mean to. I don’t know if that’s because I’m a good listener, or a good talker, or just that I make them feel comfortable. You could call it natural curiosity, or just being bloody nosey, but I’m really interested in people. I want to know what their jigsaw pieces are. I mean, part of my job is the art of studying people. It’s how you find characters. That’s what I do.”
And there is something disarming about Jumbo. I find myself recounting newsroom horror stories from my days as a tabloid reporter and telling her the gory details about interviews gone wrong. I suspect she’s already better at this than I am. Ever the sharer, she responds in kind, telling me about bad experiences she had as a young actor working with more established names.
“To meet someone you admire and just be ignored by them is one thing, because sometimes people are just quiet. But to meet them and to watch them bully people, or treat people badly, or to treat you badly, I find unacceptable, on a human level.”
Is she talking about anyone in particular?
“Yes.”
Care to name and shame?
“No,” she says, flashing a slightly evil grin. “But it makes you realise this is probably what happened to them – you either get really mad about it and decide that’s what you’ll do when you become well known. Or you make
sure you never become that person.” Suffice to say Jumbo chose the latter.
Hamlet is one of the roles for any stage actor, the kind of gig that comes around only when you’re at the very top of your game (and if you’re a woman, it probably never comes around at all). It carries with it an impossible weight of expectation, the burden of history bearing down upon you as you follow in the footsteps of John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ian McKellan et al. Jumbo was a revelation in the role: utterly magnetic, with a steely deliberateness to the set of her jaw and the slouch of her shoulders.
“It’s a play about mental health, which I’m very passionate about,” she says. “It’s about the coming of age of a boy and it’s a really hard time for boys right now. I love that Shakespeare wrote something that was so futuristic in its understanding, so ahead of its time. Hamlet is born out of time, and he can’t cope.”
She says she studied various types of masculinity, “collecting pictures” of who her Hamlet might be. “Is masculinity about physical strength? Political strength? Is it Boris Johnson or is it Stormzy? Is it a man walking down a catwalk in heels?”
This was not the first time Jumbo had played a traditionally male part, having worked with Phyllida Lloyd in her all-female production of Julius Caesar, in which she took the role of Mark Antony. It makes me wonder if, when director Max Webster
Is masculinity about physical strength? Political strength? Is it Boris Johnson or is it Stormzy? Is it a man walking down a catwalk in heels?
approached her to play Lady Macbeth in the just-opened new show at the Harold Pinter Theatre, she didn’t fancy taking David Tennant’s title role instead…
“Nah, I’ve never wanted to play Macbeth. I have always wanted to play Lady Macbeth though. Shakespeare actually writes her in a really, really masculine way. If you took her name away, she could be a guy. She’d be like an Iago as opposed to a crazy, hysterical woman.”
Jumbo isn’t just breaking down gender barriers but racial ones, too. The British stage looks very different today than it did even a decade ago, with a long overdue drive in Theatreland for blind casting and the foregrounding of black and brown faces. Has the racial legacy of a play or writer or venue ever influenced her decision to take a role?
“If I turned down a job every time I didn’t agree with the writer, there wouldn’t be much classical theatre for me to do, because most of them weren’t written for people like me. And if I was to decide not to act on any stage that had been built by anybody with connections to slave money, I wouldn’t have many theatres to work in.
“I remember playing Eliza Doolittle at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. It was my first lead and I was thrilled to be doing it. I got a bit of flack at the stage door from some people who thought that it was wrong of me to do a classical play there because of the history of the Royal Exchange, and I just didn’t agree. I felt that by playing Eliza Doolittle, I was helping to encourage young people and people of colour and people from different backgrounds to come to the theatre for the first time. Sometimes you have to balance up the good you can do with the past and work out which one is more important.”
It’s the same reason she accepted her OBE from the Queen: “Some people turn it down but I thought there was more good to be done with it. For me it was an amazing honour, and to get it from her shortly before she died was a real privilege.”
Our plates have been cleared and the lunch service has all but cleared out. As we head out into the London rain I ask what the next entry on her CV might be. “Oh, my brain is always having an idea about something else. I don’t like being restricted to boxes.” There’s certainly not much you would put past her.
l Macbeth is on now at the Harold Pinter Theatre; Origins podcast is out now
How ridiculous is it to rank cities by happiness? Quite ludicrous, says the organisation that did it anyway. ADAM BLOODWORTH spends a week in the city of Aarhus in Denmark – supposedly the happiest in the world – to see if cheerfulness can be bottled
You probably haven’t heard of Aarhus, but Denmark’s second biggest city – which has serious beef with Copenhagen – claims to be the ‘happiest city in the world’. The British Institute for Quality of Life this summer draped the medal over the shoulders of the low-key place, home to 300,000 Danes. “I would think a lot of people who live here would imagine the happiest place must be somewhere in California,” local record store owner Bjørn tells me. “Somewhere where it’s sunny. Happiest place? Really?”
Amid the cost of living crisis, the loneliness epidemic, and the world burning, it’s hard to be happy anywhere right now. So what’s their secret, and should we throw everything we own in a bag and relocate? Could the grass actually be greener? What does it take to be hailed as the happiest city in the world, and can a concept so subjective really be attributed to a geographical location?
First things first, Aarhus really is a cool place. I visited over the summer because I was fascinated with the idea of bottling utopia. Some reasons it is cool: it is by the sea; it is small enough to be walkable but cosmopolitan enough to have things to do; there is a jazz festival; bikes seem to be the main mode of transport; nature is everywhere and streets suddenly get engulfed by forests. The city beat off competition from London (voted 33rd
happiest city), and front-runners Zurich, Berlin and Gothenburg to take the gong.
Everyone here looks well. Great hulking Vikings with impeccable dentistry, well-curated garms and, seemingly, not a worry in the world (this may be reserved for heteronormative white Aarhusians, but more on that later).
The Latin Quarter, a few minutes’ walk from the commercial centre, is a comedically perfect-looking hipster utopia. The city is populated by 38,000 students, and impossibly handsome young people stroll at a pace that suggests they have absolutely nowhere to go. Shops and cafes display a distinguishably Danish type of cool; al fresco dining from steel tables that glint in the sun; people sitting on azure-blue milk crates turned on their side. No one seems to be at work.
A ten minute cycle away, The Infinite Bridge forms a boardwalk ring over the bay, like a metaphor of how, in Aarhus, beauty is cyclical and never ending. It almost certainly helps that salaries are high and rents lower than in Copenhagen, but there’s also a focus on high quality municipal projects: the world’s largest harbour baths, a world-leading design triumph, are free-to-enter; locals swig from shop-bought bottles of wine in-between plunges. A gender museum highlights over a dozen ways to self-define and feels strides more progressive than any comparator in London (our Queer Museum is much
smaller and only opened in 2021).
“People are maybe a little bit more relaxed and there’s a lot of trust as well,” muses Bjørn. “That’s an important thing, to establish personal connection with customers. That’s something that contributes to a happy city.”
But there’s another facet to this conundrum. One black local pulls me away from her group to share her experiences of racism. “Beware of the blonde hair and blue eyes,” she says. A fairly staggering 86 per cent of the country’s population is ethnically Danish and new reports highlight the discrimination faced by people from minority ethnic backgrounds. Suicide rates are higher than in the UK, and there’s an epidemic of lonelinesss.
The happiest place in the world? Clearly it’s not as simple as that. Aarhus is a bellwether for a far more interesting conversation: how we define happiness, and where we look for it. Anna Overgaard, a ceramicist in the city, illustrates the issue that lies beneath the locals’ perfectly smooth skin: “What are you looking for? Is it whether you feel safe? Content? Do you go to bed with a full belly and a roof over your head? Or is it that you’re happy? Content with yourself?”
Philosophers broadly describe happiness in two ways: hedonism, and life satisfaction, the first relating to a temporary state of mind and the second to a broader style of living. But it doesn’t take an Oxbridge grad to work out that a city – a nebulous, ever-changing thing – cannot be either of those. Even the Happy City Index admits this, opening its list with a 300-word blurb explaining why the idea of a happy city is essentially nonsense. “We believe it is not possible to fairly identify a single city as the best in terms of ensuring the happiness of its inhabitants.”
“A city does not have feelings,” confirms psychologist Clare Patterson, a member of the Counselling Directory. “It is not the
city that is happy, and our happiness is not dependent on it. We can be just as satisfied anywhere else in the world. Happiness is within, not without.”
The risk many of us face in day-to-day life is confusing happiness with peace of mind, says Patterson. “Our happiness can go up and down depending on our life circumstances. Our peace cannot. It is always within us and cannot be affected by our environment.”
Perhaps the best Aarhus can do is to help us acknowledge that if we’re chasing happiness in physical form, it can point to a deeper problem. And that has very little to do with where we live. “Happiness is seriously misunderstood. It really isn’t as ‘far away’ as we think it is,” adds Patterson. “Ironically, when we discover the peace inside ourselves, our happiness increases naturally and we become far less dependent on our material circumstances. It really
does take very little to be happy, but sadly in today’s materialistic society, this is not the message we receive.”
That’s not to say nature cannot impact happiness. More that it’s a small factor inextricably tied to other things, like our own view of ourselves and our inherent sense of inner peace. Patterson acknowledges that most of us “‘feel better’ when out in nature,” because it “removes some of the obstacles we may have to realising peace and joy within ourselves.” In other words, it papers over our issues; offers a temporary reprieve.
Clearly Aarhus is a great place to live. Bjørn moved there in 1998 to study and has never looked back; his student job at the record store ending up with him running the place. “You never really know where life takes you,” he says. Anna fled Aarhus for the Danish capital in her twenties but has returned to open her first ceramics studio. “In Copenhagen it is difficult to do this full time.”
Before I touched down in Aarhus I was, of course, aware that cities can’t cure sadness. But I had been interested to walk among the people who, at least statistically, had the odds stacked in their favour. The city did not make me happy, however; if anything, the Danish reputation for reserve can feel cold and standoffish, and Aarhus didn’t feel like an easy place to travel alone. I experienced my own dose of the loneliness epidemic while I was on happy soil.
Still, the reasons for its happiness credentials were plain to see: it was lovely to visit the beach and go to the forest straight after, via a decent supermarket. As a Londoner, I’m used to a 40 minute schlep to reach my friends on the other side of the city, and I certainly felt less stressed being able to reach Aarhus’ extremities via a five minute bike ride.
I am certain that the city is geographically utopic, and it felt inspiring to watch the Danes go about their lives, jumping in and out of the saltwater pool with their perfect skin and perfect smiles. But who knows what’s going on inside.
It doesn’t require a degree in philosophy to work out that a city – a nebulous, ever-changing thing – does not experience feelings of happiness
Opposite: Life coach Michael Serwa poses in his Mayfair flat by a piece of art; Inset below: Serwa’s book From Good To Amazing: No-Bullshit Tips For The Life You Always Wanted
The life coaching business is worth more than $4 billion. But is it a big scam? LUCY KENNINGHAM books a session with the UK’s highest paid coach, Michael Serwa, to find out.
Pictures by ANDY BLACKMORE
Would you see a life coach? This is the question I have been asking anyone who would listen for the last month. And what would you ask them?
About your career? Your health? Your love life?
Well guess what: I’ve got a date with Michael Serwa, the UK’s highest paid life coach! No one could fail to be intrigued, impressed and – dare I say it – amused by his website michaelserwa.com, which reads like a Linkedin highlights reel (“I work exclusively with winners”) and features a list of baffling details – or indeed warnings –about the man himself (“I once took so much MDMA it stopped having an effect”; “My extreme confidence is sometimes mistaken for arrogance”; and, for some reason, “I’m prepared to try everything once. Except for heroin. And sex with a man”).
I’d taken the idea of life coaching so unseriously that I hadn’t really considered what it would entail. I imagined it would be a chess match with a master manipulator – one who was about to meet his match in me, a sceptic who would unmask both him and the seedy underbelly of the life coaching industry lurking beneath the well groomed facade.
The truth, however, was quite different.
lll
I feel an unwelcome anxiety as I walk up Savile Row for our meeting. It’s June but it’s wet; it’s Mayfair but it’s dirty. I locate the penthouse and a man buzzes me up. There’s no receptionist, no plants, no sign-in book. A pale, lanky man with the air of a magician opens the door and offers me his hand. He’s standing so close I get a waft of his high-end fragrance but the corridor is dark and narrow so I assume this is unintentional. His impeccable, straight-backed posture feels like an affront to my stubbornly sloped shoulders. He’s dressed in a neat
black suit and crisp white shirt, open at the collar. Smart but ready to Do Business.
Beaming, he introduces himself, revealing a hint of a Polish accent. Beyond the corridor, where I had expected an office, is a room that looks like the set of American Psycho: white walls, minimalist decor. He says he loves his balcony, which could, in theory, be nice (glass doors open onto it from the living room) but it doesn’t look as though he – or indeed anyone else – ever goes there: no chairs, no plants, just fake grass that looks out onto a grey London skyline. My first real shock: the penthouse turns out to be Serwa’s home. The couch I’m shown to is modern and uncomfortable. “I’ve never used the kitchen,” he tells me, apropos of nothing. I think he expects me to be impressed. “It was very important to me that nobody be able to see the sink,” he continues. I don’t get a chance to probe this psychological quirk beyond a need for control that borders on the unhealthy: “I like to be in control of my surroundings at all times,” he says. “I’m definitely a control freak, It’s more than just liking to be in control. How to put it accurately… I would go as far as to say that I need to be in control. It’s not a preference.” Yikes, I think.
Shall we start the life coaching, I suggest. He says he would rather I interview him first because life coaching will work better if I “trust” him. His clients absorb hours of his podcasts, articles and social media content before coming to him, so when they start their sessions they already feel they “know” him.
It becomes apparent, however, that the more I know, the less I trust him. It’s not that he is unpleasant or deceitful, rather that, as he regales me with stories of his success, I can’t help but feel he’s playing a role, acting the part of the ultra-confident Life Coach, wielding his metaphorical magic wand, ready to wave my problems away.
When I ask him to talk about his own life, his anecdotes are actually very anodyne.
“I’m the kind of guy who would go to a restaurant and ask them to turn down the AC,” he boasts.
“Even if it’s not too cold?” I ask, genuinely curious. “No,” he says. “If I wasn’t too cold I wouldn’t have an issue.” Oh.
His hobbies, he tells me, are “dating” and “going to the gym”. It feels like the further I scratch below the surface, the less there is to find. This is what worries me about the cult of personal development: what if, in the pursuit of perfection, you end up polishing away your personality?
Serwa is slim and no doubt in good shape beneath his extremely tight fitting suit (he tells me about his thriceweekly gym routine). He has severe features, his eyes and nose set like those of a predatory bird. As advertised on his website, he swears a lot and the overall effect is of a mildly comical cartoon character. He eats and drinks nothing during our three and a half hours together, but generously plies me with sparkling water and snacks.
Life coaching wasn’t something he fell into, it was “more of a calling,” revealing itself to him as a profession – or “that’s how it felt” anyway. So what is life coaching? Well, I can tell you what it’s not. It is not therapy, according to Serwa, which focuses on the past rather than the future. But what it is seems to depend on the individual coach.
Serwa came to London from Poland with very little, including no qualifications (not because he wasn’t smart, he hastens to add, but because he “got over” school early). He travelled to London by bus for 27 hours because he couldn’t afford the plane.
He has done well for himself. Now he says he works “with big personalities and the smartest people in the room,” clients who “have a hard time finding a coach who can meet them at their level”. He says his personality and coaching style “can be too much for most people – which is okay because I’m not a coach for most people”.
He doesn’t reveal his pricing – “it’s different for everyone” – but his services are said to cost anywhere between £5,000 to £50,000 for a course, which he claims makes him the
highest paid life coach in the land. He has 15 clients in total, all “CEOs, HNWIs, entrepreneurs, executives, doctors, lawyers, and other high achievers” (none of which are categories in which I could be included), who he says have “24/7/365 access” to him via Whatsapp. This seems like an extraordinary burden, although he is true to his word: when I follow up after our session he generously responds with several messages and six voicenotes.
Some clients send him their daily calorie intakes. Others request his services for regulating the amount of work they do. They even send him screenshots of their Hinge profiles for him to tinker with. “One of my new male clients recently became single,” he says. “I’m helping him create the best profile possible so he can get to his goal of finding a new life partner as quickly as possible.”
This seems like a sorry indictment not on Serwa but on all of us: has our society become so infantilised that we must outsource so much of our decision-making to third parties? Is this where we have arrived?
The world outside Serwa’s window is monotone. I drink black coffee and shuffle in my seat, once again admiring his posture. Fleeting thoughts pass through my mind: I’m glad I don’t live in Mayfair, and that I have a kitchen sink I don’t feel the need to hide. Serwa is kind, generous and talkative, every bit the extrovert he claims to be. He gives me a copy of his book, From Good to Amazing, a self-help flick-through full of one-page chapters with titles including ‘Have Money’ and ‘Smile’. Less helpful for me is page 113: ‘Stop watching the news’. He tells me I’m exempt from that one.
“I don’t have friends,” he says, confidently. “I have clients who I’m
There’s always room to analyse oneself, to find space for improvement, to see imperfections as problems that can – nay, must – be solved. But what do you sacrifice?
friendly with. All coaches are different but the type of conversations I’m having with my clients are not very different to the types of conversations you would have with a good friend. I see friendships as an act of service.”
That feels wrong, I venture out loud. I sound a little desperate, thrown by the idea friendship might be a mere act of service, something you could pay for, as if I somehow hadn’t realised the Cold Hard Truth. But… but isn’t friendship about having fun?
“Sure, yeah. Except at 41 I feel like I’ve passed that stage of going out just to have fun. It used to be bars and clubs and restaurants but now I’m just happy doing what I do with my clients.”
Then he throws another curveball.
“Maybe things would be slightly different if I wasn’t as close as I am to my mother. My mother is by far my biggest friend even though she’s not here, she’s in Poland.”
This kind of life sounds incredibly lonely to me, especially for someone who identifies as an extrovert. I wonder if loneliness is something he often discusses with his clients?
He says it is. Not many of them – “if any” – have conversations with their friends at the level they have conversations with him. “No goal would ever be too unrealistic for me. I would never say ‘I don’t think you can achieve this’. If anything I’d say ‘I don’t think you’re thinking big enough’. That’s the first step towards being able to achieve something. If you want to be Prime Minister you
better believe you can do it.” (Note: he doesn’t claim to have any clients who actually became premiers of a country).
lll
The life coaching industry is worth $4.56bn globally. In the US, the number of life coaches rose by more than half in the three years to 2022. It shares a rather murky overlap with influencer culture: lots of pictures of popping champagne in Mykonos, posts of expensive outfits, details of gruelling gym workouts and five-star meals. The promise is implicit: follow me, and you could live a similar life. Serwa’s Instagram is exclusively made up of shots of fancy cocktails, hotels like the Four Seasons (his “second home”) and headshots that make him look like an eagle searching for a mate. No one else ever appears in these photos. A water fountain filled with Moet does, though.
To me, life coaching seems a somewhat dubious business. I am already sceptical about therapy culture, and life coaching seems like its even less regulated cousin – anyone can (and, judging by Linkedin, does) pop up and brandish their newly stamped Life Coach credentials.
But while I am cynical, I do want to hear what he has to say. Part of me wants to buy into the idea that my problems can be fixed by a handful of meetings, my failings addressed by this charming guru, my ambitions realised with a little expert guidance. Maybe it really is this easy? Maybe my problem is that I don’t believe I can be one of Michael Serwa’s “winners”?
When I was younger, my dad always told me to strive to be average. You don’t want to be the most beautiful, he would say, you want to be average looking – like most people (not that I had much of an option in this regard). You don’t want to be the most intelligent either, nor the richest. The idea was that being exceptional is problematic: you can live a happier life if you are in the majority.
Unsurprisingly this is the opposite of Michael the
Magician’s philosophy. When I ask him what he thinks of my father’s counsel he is, for the only time in our conversation, truly taken aback.
“I think it’s… I think it’s… it’s hard to reply elegantly,” he stutters before becoming almost angry. “Okay, I think it’s total and utter bollocks.” After a pause he switches to incredulity: “Are you sure? Are you sure he said that? Was he serious?”
“I think he was serious. He’s an economist,” I say, as if this makes him incapable of being unserious.
“That should be illegal! It’s like clipping a child’s wings.”
Almost three hours have passed by the time Serwa and I come to the session itself, and I’m exhausted.
It’s been like talking to an extremely friendly jack-in-the-box.
I don’t know what he runs on, seeing as I was the only one who had been chugging coffee and gluten-free-vegan snacks, from a tray he produced with a flourish out of thin air (ever the magician). We start with The Assessment, which involves a checklist of 24 items. The exercise: from the following categories, rate where you are out of 10. They include Love Life, Health, Career, Energy, Bad Habits (I don’t mention my vape), Family Life, Clarity of Goals, Leadership and Assertiveness.
My lowest score is for Sleep Quality for which I put zero, being a chronic insomniac. Serwa suggests meditation. I baulk at this but he says people who are most resistant to spending time alone with their thoughts are the ones who most need to consider it.
I get stuck on Leadership – what if I don’t want to be a leader? He says as long as I’m satisfied, I can still score highly: a single person who wants to be single can have a
10/10 Love Life score, he says, clearly alluding to himself (he doesn’t have a partner but assures me he’s “highly successful” in that department). “Anyway,” he says after a moment. “Aren’t you a thought leader?”
Oh god, I think.
Ultimately I find it hard to open up. My organs curl when speaking about my most intimate worries and anxieties. Do I arrogantly assume I’m above his help? Or worse, do I consider myself beyond help?
I vehemently dislike the idea of my life being itemised and scrutinised and scored out of 10. I hate lists, charts, checklists, scoreboards, setting goals, and other similar activities. Yet despite all this, my general happiness came out at seven, which Serwa says is higher than most of his clients and indicates that I don’t need too much help (little does he know…).
But I don’t want to approach life in his surgical style. I want to live qualitatively, not quantitatively. I don’t want to rate my sleep quality from zero to 10 every morning and obsess over the perfect night’s kip. I don’t want to channel my gaze inward, continually assessing and “optimising” myself (and to whom’s values?). It’s the same reason I don’t want to use Strava to track my runs. I used to –methodically, obsessively – until I realised what that took away from me: the pleasure of the experience.
There’s always room to analyse oneself, to find space for improvement, to see imperfections as problems that can –nay, must – be solved. But what do you sacrifice if you start to look at life as a series of categories?
Despite his best efforts, my encounter with Serwa has only hardened my resistance to self-optimisation. I want to keep the rough edges that define whatever ‘I’ am – even if my editor might prefer I work on my toxic habit of procrastination and score a 10/10 for Effectiveness & Productivity.
In the end, when I file this article late after yet another bad night’s sleep, I will tell my editor – and reassure myself – that these flaws are what make us human.
Tattoos on faces, necks and hands have been proven to hamper your chances of success in the job market – but are attitudes slowly changing? RALPH JONES delves into the world of facial ink, asking those with visible tats how it affects their lives
Jamie McPhee’s first face tattoo was a little star under his eye. He just fancied it.
After the star under his left eye, he got a star under his right eye – the asymmetry was bugging him. Before you could say,
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Jamie?” he had a skull and crossbones on the back of his neck, an entire garden on the top of his head, a fish bone behind his right ear and a spider web that covered his chin (complete with spider on the neck).
Some people might look at Jamie’s face and make certain assumptions. He himself acknowledges that the word ‘dangerous’ might spring to mind when confronted with a heavily tattooed face. This couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to the 37-year-old, who is a sweet support worker from Edinburgh. As more and more of the population cover themselves in tattoos, we are ever so slowly beginning to appreciate that being inked on the face and neck doesn’t mean that the person in question is a criminal or a thug. But not for nothing is a face tattoo known as a ‘jobstopper’.
“When people see me they do feel intimidated,” says 40-year-old Kevin Paul, a tattooist with face tattoos. “But once they get to know me, they realise I’m just a moron.” Kevin has been tattooed since he was 12 years old. He is in an unusual position: he has face tattoos; he tattoos other people’s faces; and, as the owner of a laser clinic, he removes face tattoos, too. He has worked with the government, prisons, with victims of terrorism, and in 2020 made a short BBC film about the perception of face tattoos. “I was one person who was very lucky to find a
path and look like this,” he says. “Face tattoos will always restrict you and guide you down a path. It’s the only thing that you can have acceptable prejudice with.”
He’s absolutely right. Under the 2010 Equality Act, there are various aspects of a person which qualify as ‘protected characteristics’. These are age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage or civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation. This means, for example, that an employer cannot legally fire someone for being gay. You will notice that tattoos of spider webs on your chin are not on that list. The idea is, generally speaking, that someone getting a face tattoo knows exactly what they’re letting themselves in for, making a potentially harmful choice, the consequences of which they are going to have to live with. One could quibble with this argument –getting married and having children are both choices, for example, and you can choose your religion.
Regardless: “An employer would be within their rights to reject prospective employees on the basis of having visible tattoos anywhere on their body,” says Martin Pratt, a partner in employment law at RWK Goodman. “It’s perfectly lawful for someone to have a no-tattoo policy in place.” But should it be?
This antipathy to face tattoos isn’t just anecdotal but borne out in research. A YouGov survey in 2018 reported that, of 501 HR ‘decision-makers’, 61 per cent were “substantially” less likely to hire someone with face tattoos. Some 17 per cent were “slightly” less likely to. This left only 22 per cent, who were split between not caring or being more likely to hire (presumably
these were people recruiting for tattoo parlours). The writing’s on the wall for people with writing on their face: get a tattoo somewhere prominent and you’re jeopardising your career.
We may, however, be a little more conservative in the UK than in the US.
The same year as the YouGov survey, Paul Antonellis and Rachel Silsbee from Merrimack College in Massachusetts conducted a study of 243 people on a human resource management discussion board. Their results concluded that 20 per cent would not hire someone with a face or a neck tattoo; 30 per cent would; and for 50 per cent it would depend on the position. If we divide that 50 per cent down the middle, it would mean that 45 per cent of respondents wouldn’t hire someone with a face or neck tattoo – still a sizeable minority, but a minority nonetheless.
Antonellis, who has a tattoo of a devil on his shoulder, tells me that his study highlighted that people were on a spectrum and could be persuaded. For a construction job, for example, there will probably be less pushback to a face tattoo than for a job in accountancy. “People are becoming more accepting of it,” he says. Still, he acknowledges that covering up your tattoos (famously difficult in the case of face tattoos) will stand you in better stead. He points to previous research in which people have been asked for their perception of a surgeon, then asked again once they can see that the surgeon has tattoos. The perception changes – and not for the better.
This is something Jamie worries about: “It’s made me more nervous going into job interviews, that’s for sure. I feel I’m already
two steps behind.”
But away from the operating table, having face tattoos doesn’t need to mean falling off the career ladder. Josh, 36, works for Best Buy’s Geek Squad in the US, where he fixes electrical appliances. While at Best Buy he got a cactus tattoo on his face and multiple tattoos around his neck, including 666, the number of the devil. He is a supervisor now, and says he has experienced no prejudice.
“It has not been an issue at all,” he says.
“Just because somebody’s got tattoos doesn’t mean that they aren’t as capable of doing the work.”
Though Josh scoffs at the idea that certain jobs shouldn’t be taken by people with face tattoos, Jamie and Kevin feel differently.
Despite both saying that they are not defined by their face tattoos, both think a banker or a doctor with a face tattoo would make them
The writing’s on the wall for people with writing on their face: get a tattoo somewhere prominent and you’re jeopardising your career
feel uncomfortable. If we are slowly chipping away at the negative perception, these more traditional roles will surely be the last to change.
Neither Antonellis nor an anonymous City professional I spoke to would have any problem hiring someone with a face tattoo. As more and more of the population is tattooed, it is hard not to see people following his lead, with the excuse that there are concerns about what ‘other people might think’ becoming harder to swallow. Legally, Pratt hasn’t seen any evidence to suggest that things will be changing any time soon, even if internal policies have softened over the years. But the young people who are now tattooed – whether on their face, hands or neck – may be in senior hiring positions in 20 years and it would be strange if they, too, discriminated against the tattooed potential employees.
In 2022, a different YouGov study reported that, while 80 per cent of over55-year-olds considered face and neck tattoos unprofessional, only 47 per cent of 25-34-year-olds did. Will those 25-34-year-olds harden by the time they’re 55? Time will tell.
In recent years, employers may have begun to recognise that they miss out on talented candidates by excluding those with visible tattoos – and in 2016 were warned about exactly this by the workplace expert ACAS. “What I am inside and what I create and how I think about the world is not what I look like,” says Kevin. “Some people can look at me walking down the road and they cross over. But I’ve done more good for this country than most.” Even if things are changing slowly, it does feel like they’re changing.
He’s one of the vanishingly small number of actors to move from the streets of Walford to the studios of Hollywood. He talks to ADAM BLOODWORTH about sexuality, filmmaking and pretending to be a failure
Last month, photos went viral of former EastEnders star Ben Hardy canoodling with the actor Jason Patel. In videos, the two are often tactile as they speak; a quick glance and they can look like absolute couple goals. Hardy, who has since turned film actor and played Roger Taylor in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, has had high-profile relationships with female co-stars. But here he was, comfortably intimate, in public, with another man at a press conference for his new LGBTQ romance drama Unicorns. The narrative among the toxic trolls was clear: ‘Omg, Hollywood hunk is gay!’
“It’s interesting,” Hardy begins, relaxing on a bench in a London park one blisteringly hot June morning. “We’re not a couple, but we looked like a couple. We’re very close, we’re very good friends, and he’d be there blowing a kiss near my cheek. Then on Instagram I experienced a drop in the ocean of what it’s like to be an openly gay or queer person. I started getting comments and DMs and I was like, ‘What the f*ck?’ I spoke to Jason and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I get that every day,’ To experience it first hand even in a tiny way was shocking. Man, I can’t imagine going through that every single day. I don’t usually look at comments, it just sort of flagged up ‘cause it was big all caps: ‘OH MY GOD HE’S GAY.’”
In Unicorns Hardy plays Luke, a single father who unravels when he falls for an Asian drag queen called Aysha, played by Patel. Given Hardy has achieved what most EastEnders alum can only dream of, playing opposite Ryan Reynolds in 6 Underground and landing the role of Angel in the X-Men franchise 12 months after he left Albert Square, it was brave to take on the LGBTQ indie – and the inevitable abuse – just as his Hollywood career was gaining traction. Lest we forget, homophobic hate crimes are rising in the UK and USA and it’s an established fact in film that you lose audiences in middle America – anywhere between the two coasts, where homophobia is rife – if you come out as gay, which can have a drastic effect on the roles you’re hired for.
The steamy Unicorn sex scenes with Patel feel authentic and were unrehearsed, the two men finding their flow spontaneously during filming. Director James Floyd kept the two apart before the shoot to heighten their chemistry. “It was all very much, like, let’s go and see what happens,” says Hardy through laughter, recalling his climax scene which is an intense close-up of his eyes: “This is an over-share but I don’t care: [during the filming of that scene] I revealed my own weird kinks to the director, saying: ‘Will you just whisper to me ‘good boy’ to help me get there?’ But I ended up just bursting out laughing.” Was he worried about the reception? “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind,” starts Hardy, pausing. “It’s
odd, I can still hear that voice of concern, but that’s part of the social conditioning, isn’t it? That’s part of the problem. Why shouldn’t an actor play any part? Why should they worry about being seen as something because surely it’s okay to be that something? So why the hell should you worry about portraying that? Sometimes you have to just ignore the voices in your head. It was a really powerful script and a story I wanted to be a part of so I wasn’t going to let that fear get in the way.”
It’s the sort of mental strength and clarity of thought that must have helped Hardy establish a career beyond soap opera in the first place. His drive is undeniable: speaking to Deadline this year, the 33-year-old said that when his EastEnders role became unchallenging, he felt: “I need to get out of here,” adding: “I think there’s a point where I had to leave... because I felt like if I didn’t leave, I’d get stuck.”
The conversation about which actors can play queer roles is complex, controversial and evolving. A few years ago the established narrative was that ‘straight’ actors playing gay was a cardinal sin. Russell T Davies, who rebirthed Doctor Who, is a poster-boy for that narrative, criticising any non-queer actor playing a queer role. In 2016 Ben Hardy met a similar wrath when he was on the cover of gay magazine Attitude. One publication ran a hit piece entitled: “Gay UK Magazine Put Straight, White Ben Hardy on Cover.”
But therein lies the problem: how can we be so sure of anyone’s sexuality? More and
more people are defining as bisexual or pansexual as we come to terms with the fact that, shock horror, it’s just not as simple as being gay or straight: there’s much grey area in-between. As the theatre director Mike Bartlett explained to City AM when he spoke about casting Cock, his play about bisexuality: “What’s tricky is, are you going to say to the actor, ‘I want a full list of everybody you’ve ever slept with?’” It’s exactly the point Unicorns – which we described as an “era-defining romance” – is trying to make.
How does Hardy feel about labels? “James Floyd talks about it, he’s very anti label,” he says. “He’s very much about how he doesn’t want to be put in a box. He was raised as an Asian guy, white dad, Asian mum, he’s sexually fluid himself, he’s still exploring
You could tell me you’re queer, bi, pansexual, straight, whatever, but that doesn’t mean I would know you. There’s so much more to know
that and figuring it out. He says there’s very much a hashtag culture, where people define themselves by their hashtags.
“I learned from him and I agree with him and I find it really interesting, you know. We’re all just people, we’re all so multifaceted. Why stick to one label or one thing? I think it can be empowering, don’t get me wrong, especially when those labels have been marginalised, but yeah, I think it’s much more interesting…” He trails off.
“We’ve just met, there’s a million things I don’t know about you. You could tell me you’re queer, bi, pansexual, straight, whatever, but that doesn’t mean I would know you. There’s so much more to know about you than that.”
So what are the “million things” to know about Ben Hardy? Well, he likes “to sit and bake” in the sun, I learned off the bat. An hour’s sun soak later we had a sweaty hug goodbye even though neither of us had moved. It’s a refreshingly unstarry approach to a skin-care regime, and yes, that is a bellwether for how ‘ordinary’ Hardy is given his fame. He likes to run around this park, to get “lost in the middle of greenery”. He works out a lot, is a cinephile and plays the joker among friends. One pic on his Instagram of him mucking about at Royal Ascot is captioned: “Another year of successfully lowering the tone.” Under another post advertising the watch brand Bremont, which has watches starting from £3,200, he’s written: “Finalllyyyy @ bremontwatches have found someone who’ll add a little class to the brand.” “I try and be
semi-authentic with that,” he says about his social media persona.
He’s an open book, telling me a minute after we met the intricate details of his last flat share (I’d been sharing my London living woes). He speaks in a blokeish baritone that goes higher and speeds up when he’s enraged or passionate. Growing up in a suburb outside of Bournemouth, Hardy went to an ordinary comprehensive school and was in part brought up by his working-class dad who used to make films in his spare time.
“This is very broad brushes, but often people from a working-class background put the emphasis on getting a job that pays,” says Hardy. “He was very open to me trying something else.” He’s enraged when we talk about the challenges for workingclass actors breaking into the industry; I tell him that The Crown’s casting agents didn’t use an open-casting call to find Viola Prettejohn, the actor playing the young Queen, instead they just turned up at her posh private school: “That’s fucking outrageous. No, fuck that.”
After a series of injuries halted trials to become a rugby player, Hardy pursued drama, which he’d loved alongside sport, going to acting school aged 18 at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. His first job was on the London stage in Judas Kiss opposite Rupert Everett where Hardy stripped off fully naked, an experience he
described as “nerve-wracking”. He landed the role of Peter Beale on EastEnders in 2015. He’s grateful for the platform EastEnders gave him, but “in the nicest way, wouldn’t want to experience it again. You’re in someone’s living room four nights a week. I’ve never experienced anything like the fan attention.”
Mostly, he’s just an incredibly warm bloke you’d want to go down the pub with. Tabloids run headlines about Hardy peddling the ‘EastEnders to Hollywood’ narrative but it makes him uncomfortable. “I mean, it’s not true,” he says. “Like, I wish I had as much money as people think I do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very thankful to be
doing something I love for a living and I do make a good living, but I’m not a millionaire, which people often think.”
After a few months off, he’s looking forward to getting back to work. As much as he loves recreational time, like most of us, he struggles to do nothing, and prides himself on a 9-6 daily programme of enrichment activities, from learning piano to working out, even when he’s off (does he stick to it? “Mainly”). In the future, he wants to do a few more “big-budget, profile building” roles in order to help facilitate bringing more indies into the world, either as an actor or producer. “I’d love to have the profile to be able to green-light small budget movies, bring the story to the screen.”
I’d like to not give a f*ck about acting. It’s hard not to be a desperate, hungry actor. I think I’m constantly trying to not give a f*ck about that
Hardy is ultimately a pragmatist; something that grounds him. He’s taken to lying about his success when EastEnders fans – often unaware of his broader career –ask him if he’s still acting. Forget Unicorns, role-playing the demise of his career may be his bravest part yet.
“They’ll be looking at me and pitying me,” he says. “Sometimes I say it didn’t work out and I’m not acting anymore. I do it for myself, like a rehearsal for if that would ever happen. Ultimately, I’d like to not give a f*ck about acting profiles and jobs anyway. It’s hard not to be a desperate, hungry actor. I think I’m constantly trying to not give a f*ck about that.”
Every year a competition takes place to find the greatest karaoke singer on the planet. The main event will take place in Finland but to get there, each country must host a trial by fire qualifier to select their entrant. This year that was hosted in the seaside town of Bournemouth. RM CLARK goes behind the scenes to find out who could be the next...
Barging past a swarm of small children jostling upwards from the seafront, I arrive at the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre. It is, with the best will in the world, an ugly building, like a bingo hall had sex with a secondary school. Inside is a different story. Its intestines are a marbled maze of tiles and carpets, dressed with long wooden handrails and dotted with dramatic stained glass lights.
A woman tells me she has been coming here since the 1960s; according to her husband she saw The Beatles here. This turns out not to be true; still, it feels like the kind of place the Beatles could have played, even if they didn’t. Tonight, the theatre will play host to two separate events. In the main room, 1990s acid jazz pioneers The Brand New Heavies are playing, and in the side room, it’s the final round of a competition to decide the UK’s representative at this year’s Karaoke World Championships.
The grand finale will be held in Finland, where representatives from more than 30 countries will compete to win a one-off recording contract and a €5,000 cash prize. Whoever wins tonight will be defending the UK’s title as reigning champion, after Grimsby’s Ellie Butler won last year’s event in Panama with her rendition of The Impossible Dream.
Things kick off at 7.15pm. By 7.17pm, Lauren, the event’s organiser, is careering across the stage, set between luscious red curtains, in a sequined dress, backed up by a well-drilled troupe from the local performance school. She looks and sounds like a popstar.
The competition’s host continues the theme. A slick, slim man in a slick, slim suit, only his punchlines are more polished than his shoes. “You’re from Leeds?” he asks one group in the crowd. “Well enjoy another season in The Championship”.
It’s good, honest fun, dripping in camp and determined not to take itself too seriously. Perfectly placed then, as a microcosm of this nation’s karaoke culture. Whilst some
other parts of the world – notably Japan – take the pastime somewhat seriously, in England our relationship with karaoke is synonymous with office parties, weddings and – crucially – lashings of booze.
“They already have my respect for just being up there,” says Lisa, one-third of tonight’s judging panel and a karaoke industry stalwart. “It’s so hard to sing and be judged for it. It’s not your skill on a guitar or the drums or anything else. It’s your voice. It’s a part of you. It’s quite intimate”.
I, too, respected the bravery of each of tonight’s 10 finalists. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fearful, too. I have an almost Pavlovian response to the word “karaoke” that tenses my body in preparation for the an earbashing.
The host introduces the first of the evening’s competitors. It’s Kelly, a primary school teacher who runs the school choir, who used to sing in competitions herself as a child. In a long black dress that shimmers like fish scales in the soft glow of the overhead lights, she sings I’ll Never Love Again by Lady Gaga from the soundtrack to A Star Is Born. And from the very first note my fears were allayed. Simply put, she’s exceptional. Accomplished without being showy; relaxed without appearing detached.
Six songs later, a man called Steven rocks back and forth on his heels in a cowboy hat, growling his way through the country music staple Tennessee Whiskey. I know for a fact that he’s from Norfolk, but for four and a half minutes he was the embodiment of the American South.
Myron sits in the corner with his earphones in, an expression of intense concentration on his round, open face. A thin moustache perches on his top lip; the index finger of his right hand taps along to a rhythm only he can hear. Eight more contestants chatter happily. Most speak of a tendency towards self-doubt. A kinship fills the room like hairspray. You would never guess this group had met for the first time today.
It is an evening of false first impressions: a karaoke competition with an abundance of heart; a building with an ugly facade and a Titanic interior; a wide-shouldered construction worker with a soft heart. Steven tells how he has spent the past four weeks working in London, separated from his partner back at home in King’s Lynn, and how he misses her when he’s away.
He has auditioned multiple times for The X Factor and made this very final twice before, but it is only in the past couple of years, thanks to the support of his partner, that he’s had the confidence to really follow his dream of singing professionally. With his partner running his social media accounts and managing his bookings, the pair have secured regular work singing in pubs, clubs and at weddings. This evening has the potential to be their big break.
Marina opens the second half of the evening with a gut-wrenching rendition of All I Ask by Adele. She is already an experienced performer at just 28 years of age, having competed in the Greek version of The Voice back in 2019.
“I received a call from the production company and I didn’t know what was going on,” she tells me. “They asked me to attend an audition and I had to plan my whole life around this decision. After a couple of days I was on the aeroplane, flying to Greece to try one more time for something that I had never succeeded in.” Marina made it all the way to the semi-finals – to this day she doesn’t know who gave her name to the show.
Next up is Robbie, who has travelled all the way from Glasgow to compete. His song is another classic: I Wanna Dance With
Somebody by Whitney Houston. The performance seems to take off the handbrake; the mood changes and for the rest of the night the room is at full speed. Polite applause is substituted with rapturous dancing, impolite whispers replaced by gleeful singalongs. Marina returns to the side of the stage, swaying arm in arm with a member of Robbie’s travelling Glaswegian fanclub.
Then Myron is back with One Voice before Steven steps up with 1980s hair rock anthem Alone. “Yeah, it’s a cheesy power ballad… I’m 41,” he quips over the song’s isolated piano intro, before sauntering smoothly through the opening verse and launching two-footed into the chorus. He sounds magnificent, soaring, as though Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler never got hooked on Class A drugs. I begin to wonder if we’ve found a winner.
The handbrake is off: polite applause is replaced by rapturous dancing, impolite whispers replaced by gleeful singalongs
The remaining singers continue the party mood with a feisty rendition of James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World and an ambitious singalong to Queen’s Somebody To Love.
Soon enough, the slick, slim man is poised, microphone in hand, waiting to announce the winner. He waits. And he waits. And the pause continues for so long that he is forced to bring the microphone up to his face to clarify – “This isn’t for dramatic effect, I’m just waiting for the judges to make their decision”.
A nervous laugh ripples through the crowd. They’ve been waiting so long it has grown almost farcical. But it is not an easy decision to make. I’m no expert, but any competition that sees singers successfully channelling the likes of James Brown, Freddie Mercury and Whitney Houston is surely one to be settled by the finest of margins. There is a genuine tension in the room.
The tension is replaced by an enormous cheer as Steven is announced as the winner. He thanks his partner and her family, who have travelled to Bournemouth to offer their support. He is crying, holding a Union Jack flag above his head. He will represent the UK at the World Karaoke Championships in Finland – a testament to his persistence, talent, and ability to surround himself with good people.
Backstage the contestants hug and swap details. It is an evening in which one man has been crowned the karaoke champion, but somehow nobody has lost.
l The Karaoke World Championships UK is sponsored by Vocal Star; vocal-star.com
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INTRODUCING BRAVE NEW DISCIPLINES TO HUBLOT’S UNIVERSE IS THE SCI-FI ARTISTRY OF DANIEL ARSHAM, REPORTS ALEX DOAK
this issue’s ‘Watching the Watchmen’ feature charts the 1990s multi-pronged reinvention of the ’luxury timepiece’ as we know it, and Hublot is a key player.
Admittedly, its porthole case and rubber strap was a tough sell on launch in 1980, and Hublot didn’t really get its mojo properly on until 2004. That was when a prime architect of the post-quartz, unashamedly ritzy ticker came on board, fresh from
reestablishing Omega as the choice of glamorous celebs.
Jean-Claude Biver’s wisdom has taken Hublot in many directions, from football to gastronomy, but the world of art has proved most potent.
Contemporary forms lend especially well to Hublot’s sculpted experiments in ceramic, sapphire and titanium. Following fruitful collabs with Richard Orlinski and Takashi Murakami, it was only a matter of time before Daniel Arsham came knocking. And what a result: the ‘Arsham Droplet’ – the pocket watch as biomorphic cyborg,
totally in sync with the New Yorker’s unnerving ‘future relic’ reimaginations as sculpture.
None of the 99 Droplets being made will see much of the inside of a waistcoat, we imagine.
Two teardrop crystal domes flow gorgeously over an openworked titanium case. Hublot’s steampunk ‘MECA-10’ movement is showcased within, at tension with its organic outer – like Arsham’s cutaway Renaissance busts as robots.
If Hublot was a child of the 1990s, this is its signpost to the 1930s.
The latest goings-on in the world of haute horlogerie, from a back-to-the-future 1970s LED digital to an actually-futuristic LED analogue
In the early 1970s, Girard-Perregaux took it upon itself to develop (at huge cost) its own battery-powered movement, the Calibre 350.
Appropriately, the 350 launched aboard a wristwatch that hit ‘Battlestar Galactica’ on the scale of sci-fi cool: a DeLorean in miniature called ‘Casquette’, with push-to-illuminate, sideview LED display (in Cylon-visor red, too power-hungry to be ‘always on’).
Now Casquette’s is back, in a second collaboration between Girard-Perregaux and Saint Laurent’s ‘River Droite’ brandcollab imprint.
The Casquette 2.0 Saint Laurent 02 keeps things faithful to the original design, but is now dressed in a tough new suit of silver-grey Grade 5 titanium, as specified by YSL’s creative chief Anthony Vaccarello. What’s more, Casquette 02 is not afraid to shy from technology that nowadays courts taboo in the Jura mountains, namely a new quartz movement: Calibre GP3980, delivering new functionality features such as a second time zone and a ‘secret date’, or a memorable moment specified by the wearer such as a birthday. l Available in 200 examples exclusively at Saint Laurent Rive Droite in Los Angeles, Saint Laurent Babylone in Paris, and on ysl.com, £5,315
“When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the moon, I cried.” The
famous words of NASA’s legendary astronaut, Alan Shepard who in 1961 became the first American to go into space during the Mercury Seven programme, then in 1971 the fifth man to walk on the moon. It’s Shepherd’s unexpectedly romantic reevaluation of our ‘little blue dot’ that Swatch and Omega are now exploring with their latest MoonSwatch collab.
Three new ‘Mission on Earth’ additions (pictured above) to what’s become a cult phenomenon have seen queues snaking out of Swatch boutiques yet again, thanks to MoonSwatch’s playful take on Omega’s NASA-endorsed Speedmaster, in ‘bioceramic’ plastic. ‘Lava’ with red details, ‘Desert’ in matte beige and ‘Polar Lights’ with Aurora Borealis green each reflect earthbound wonders that only space travel could possibly have afforded. Always visible on orbit, and breathtakingly beautiful, it’s the latter that tops our shopping list. Turquoise dominates in the Polar Lights model, the blue dial itself is studded with little ‘stars’ of tiny silver-coloured flakes, inspired by the aventurine glass dials of Omega’s fancier creations. Sleeping bag at the ready, Carnaby Street up on your satnav… l In-store only, £240, swatch.com
Long before its famously bulbous diving watches (made for Italian frogmen during WWII), ‘Officine Panerai di Firenze’ had
always been a pioneer of luminescence. Guido Panerai’s patented ‘Radiomir’ (literally, ‘radium sights’) of 1915 made his family firm famous throughout the Royal Navy for their glow-in-the-dark torpedo-aiming calculators. By the 1940s, Radiomir became the name for Panerai’s first watches, then by 1965 it was ‘Luminor’, whose watch dials glowed with a paste based on infinitely less-poisonous tritium, rather than radium.
This new model glows with LEDs, not photon-activated chemical compounds. ‘Light-emitting diodes’ that are powered by electricity – but, crucially, electricity that isn’t battery-generated, rather mechanical. It’s heady stuff, developed ironically enough in cahoots with Switzerland’s biggest luminescent paint supplier. Flick open and push the button at ‘8 o’clock’ on the caseband of the new Submersible Elux LAB-ID, and several miniature LEDs beneath the indices, bezel and even the minutes hand, glow up on demand. No battery, rather four spring barrels wound by the timekeeping movement’s usual ‘automatic’ rotor, packing 30 minutes of ‘juice’ on a full charge.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the result of eight full years of R&D. And surely something Guido would be proud of. Especially since this dynamo principle draws directly from his early, on-deck landing-pad lighting technology, from which ‘Elux’ takes its name.
l £76,800, panerai.com
Whisper it, but the ‘luxury watch’ was a vision of 1990s – AKA the decade that’s taking the world by storm, again. By ALEX DOAK
It’s an observation likely to provoke a torrent of below-the-line abuse in watch nerd circles. But here we go: luxury watches as we know and love them owe their existence to a surprisingly modern confluence of circumstances.
While the mechanics inside still tick to the tune of 200-year-old technology something happened in the decade that’s happening again: the 1990s.
As well as the skater kids and grunge, the 1990s represented a Gucci-clad boom for high luxe: collectors wanted rare treasures, City boys wanted status symbols and billboards needed supermodels.
“Despite the wave of newfangled electronics ravaging the Swiss craft, some brands could see that wouldn’t
always be the case,” says Alexander Barter, once a director for Sotheby’s Watches and now co-owner of vintage boutique Black Bough. “There was no romance in circuitry, so they started to trade on the very defiance of that.
“Just look at Blancpain’s ‘We will never make a quartz watch’ campaign: it was getting pretty obvious that to sell to the burgeoning yuppy set, it had to be mechanical, lavish. By 1989, fine Swiss watches had become a status symbol and, literally, a hot commodity.”
The decade before, the only hope for a traditional watch industry laid to waste by the 1970s quartz revolution lay in a dumpy – albeit brilliant – consultant called Nicolas Hayek Sr. Helicoptered in by Switzerland’s big banks to scrape together various ailing concerns, Hayek
conceived of the Swatch watch, whose fabulous – and, importantly, fashionfocused – success propped up its considerably pricier, historic stablemates.
Later renamed the Swatch Group, after the plastic-fantastic product that saved them all, Hayek birthed a dynasty of capos, steering household names including Omega, Longines and Breguet back into the black. The most famous is Jean-Claude Biver, who just before joining Omega in 1992 had sold Blancpain back to Swatch for 1,000 times what he’d paid in 1981.
Biver had taken a punt on a dormant name, desperate to stay afloat in a moribund industry. So desperate that only his electric charisma and a ‘Fully booked’ sign stolen from a Basel restaurant ensured he wasn’t laughed
out of that year’s trade fair. He didn’t even have a single watch to show.
Nonetheless, under his brilliant slogan, “Since 1735 there has never been a quartz Blancpain watch,” Biver nurtured a quiet revolution, as well as the notion of the celebrity watch CEO. He signed Cindy Crawford to Omega in 1995, then went on to revitalise the cult experimentalist Hublot, inventing the tagline ‘The Art of Fusion’. Biver sold that brand too – to Bernard Arnault’s mighty LVMH, getting its logo onto every FIFA linesman’s number board.
From Hayek to Biver, the stage was set for the 1990s boom in bling-bling wrist candy. Admittedly, the notion of a ‘youthful’, ‘sporty luxe’ watch had been mooted in the 1970s by Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak. But it wasn’t till 1993 when this horological jetsetter would truly lift off (or perhaps weigh anchor), in the form of the beefed-up ‘Offshore’. An unheard-of 42mm-wide steroidal injection to an octagonal bracelet watch in (gasp) stainless steel, whose shock factor even earned the nickname ‘The Beast’ within AP’s own walls.
The mechanical watch was back, baby. It won Arnold Schwarzenegger himself’s endorsement, and it was the posterboy for Switzerland’s new era – not as gold retirement gift, but high-end fashion statement.
This was helped along by AP’s soon-tobe-CEO François-Henry Bennahmias, who was mixing with the edgiest and
To sell to the yuppy set, it had to be mechanical and lavish. By 1989 fine Swiss watches had become a status symbol
most brand-canny of the sports and music scenes, arguably coining the celeb’ status symbol we know today, from Rolex’s Daytona to Pharrell’s various Richard Milles. Bennahmias famously “never gave a watch away”, he – with uncanny prescience for our influencer culture – simply got watches on the wrists of Jay-Z et al.
Fans wanted them, and now.
Allocation became the new discount. A Swiss watch became a cipher, a totem. It’s how a Patek Philippe chronograph in S1E1 of Succession could form the fulcrum of Waystar RoyCo’s collapse, Tom Wambsgans gifting Logan Roy with the words, “It’s incredibly accurate: every time you read it it tells you how rich you are.”
“And then came the rise of the independent watchmaking scene,” continues Barter, “Something that brought unheard-of clout – to the watchmakers themselves, but also the wearers, who discovered a new way of showing off their knowledge and taste.”
Richard Mille’s creations certainly looked unlike anything before: strippedback spaceships in miniature, which back in 1999 could only realised by indie whizzkids Giulio Papi and Dominique Renaud, who knew nothing other than hardcore horology.
Svend Andersen, a Danish-born master who cut his teeth in Patek Philippe’s complications ateliers had already co-founded the Académie Horlogère
Des Créateurs Indépendants (AHCI) in the early 1980s. It was he who unwittingly mentored another rockstar enfant terrible of Swiss watchmaking, Franck Muller. His eponymous enterprise coined the celeb-papped ‘it watch’ – chiefly thanks to his outrageously bulbous designs, which nonetheless contained extremely well-crafted movements.
“Once I was told, ‘You have a nose for discovering talents,’” Andersens says, “and my feeling about a promising young watchmaker named Franck Muller was good. Franck duly progressed to great things, almost singlehandedly reestablishing haute horlogerie as an innovative thing, as well as a fashionable thing.”
Sir Elton John considered him the ‘Picasso’ of watches, once telling GQ magazine, “Men’s watches were nice but they were boring. Suddenly Franck enabled men to go forward to more daring watches.”
Muller himself told Revolution magazine about a midnight epiphany in a swimming pool in Mauritius in 2001: “I
Respect for past masters still ticks at the heart of every Muller and Mille, but it took the 1990s to wind things back up
thought to myself, ‘I hate rules. But… time itself is a rule. It is imposed on man. I want to create a watch that has no rules, but that always finds the right time regardless. And I will call this watch ‘Crazy Hours’.’”
The hours hand jumped 150 degrees every 60 minutes around a seemingly random dial display, the numerals were cartoonish, yet every red-carpet fashionista went loopy for it. The Franck Muller boutique in Mykonos town continues to do very well, thank you very much.
The custom of Greek shipping magnates and #influencers notwithstanding, respect for past masters still ticks at the heart of every Muller or every Mille, plus all the Patek Philippes, Piagets, APs and Panerais we’d forgotten about. It just took the 1990s to wind things back up.
WOMAN’S HOUR
LAURA MCCREDDIE-DOAK
Today’s children are the next generation of mechanical watch appreciators. So why is it so hard to find a decent watch for my daughter?
My daughter currently has a collection of three watches – all of them made by Flik Flak. Most of her friends wear Flik Flak too. Its ubiquity among this riotous group of stylish little divas is understandable – the watches are cool, the collection is so vast there’s something for every sartorial preference (and believe me these girls have preferences) and, from the parent’s point of view, they are practically indestructible. Gen Z may have ditched analogue in favour of smart, whether that be phones or watches, but Gen Alpha are in favour of watch wearing (it helps that our daughter’s school has a “no digital” policy). However, it feels as though they are poorly served by the industry. Flik Flak, and also Swatch, are ubiquitous, and rightly so, both being extremely good quality, great value for money, and with myriad design options. But a scan around the internet for other brands who cater to children brings up a homogeny of bright colours, big numbers, and an alarming amount of plastic. Some of them don’t even have a water resistance over 50m. I realise our daughter will not be scuba diving any time soon, but at least we know her watch is good to 300m, so there’s no worries if she forgets to take it off before bath time.
Is there an argument that, because a generation of adults stopped wearing watches, they aren’t buying them for their children, and therefore brands don’t see any
merit in catering to this demographic? A survey conducted by Europa Star last year found that one in three parents said their child’s first watch was a smartwatch.
What would have been an interesting follow-up question would be to ask what watches, if any, those parents had in their own collection. It’s not too much of an imaginative stretch to surmise that those children were given smartwatches because that is what their parents wear.
Our daughter asked for her first watch –specifically a diving watch with a rotating bezel (see what I mean about preferences) – at the age of three because “that’s what Daddy wears”. There’s also the point that you rarely see adverts for children’s watches or product placement in magazines. Vogue recently ran its “Mini Vogue” supplement, including travel essentials such as a £90 zen pillow, a £69 leopard-print toilet bag, and a Yoto mini audio player (alright, I’ll give them that one) but there isn’t a single watch. Adults need inspiration to pick out children’s watches for the future generation of horology nerds, thus keeping the cycle alive.
Brands can’t afford to wait until this generation grows into the adult market, they should be fostering a new generation’s interest in watches, catering to them and advertising to their parents.
My daughter and her friends treat their watches like extensions of their (rather fabulous) outfits. Just as they have wardrobes stuffed full of different looks, they want timepieces to match. All they need are more brands who’ll give it to them.
The dress watch is back but this time as day wear – LAURA MCCREDDIE-DOAK looks into the new, petit trend in everyday wristwatches
After a decade dominated by vintage reissues and integrated steel bracelets, the dress watch appears to be having a revival, but this time it is being reappropriated as a daywear and not just reserved for after dark.
Broadly speaking, dress watches are no-frills threehanders, usually with precious metal cases that, prior to the 1920s, were always platinum or white gold. Gold was reserved for daytime because that was what cigarette cases were made from; it was deemed gauche to wear the same metal with a dinner suit. It should be round, slim enough to slide under a cuff, and the dial should be black or blue. Obviously, the rules aren’t as strict now but the general aesthetic remains.
At Watches and Wonders in Geneva earlier this year, Parmigiani unveiled its new Toric. A favourite of King Charles, this once fussy design had been given a streamlined makeover. Dials, bare apart from a discrete logo and a small seconds hand, were in muted tones taken from La Corbusier’s Polychromie – a philosophy of colour paring he devised to alter a room’s architecture through judiciously placed paint in the right shade. Straps in complementary tones were in leather that looked subtly aged, as though the watch had a past.
“In crafting the new Toric collection, we drew upon the rich horological culture and expertise of Parmigiani Fleurier to redefine the essence of the men’s dress watch,” explains chief exec Guido Terrini. “This collection embodies a spirit of freedom and sophistication that reflects the evolution of the modern man’s wardrobe. Our aim was to break free from traditional constraints, creating a watch that embodies a nuanced, serene, and versatile elegance, meticulously crafted to resonate with the refined essence of today’s discerning individual.” This wasn’t an isolated incident.
Summer saw another redesign, this time for Louis
Vuitton’s Escale. For most people that name will conjure up images of its 2015 WorldTime – the dial a riot of colour thanks to the inclusion of each country’s flag next to its corresponding city on two concentric rings. The new Escale is an entirely different prospect – a restrained collection of three time-only creations with fine-grained or meteorite dials in elegant shades with subtle nods to the Maison’s origins as a maker of luggage incorporated into the design. Patek Philippe presented its classic Ellipse, with its bevelled rectangle case and proportions inspired by the principle of the Golden Ratio, on a slinky chain-style gold bracelet; bringing some 1970s swagger to proceedings.
A-listers have also been getting in on the act. Timothee Chalamet has been seen pairing a t-shirt and baseball cap with a petit Panthere. Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny wore his own vintage ladies Patek Philippe for a GQ photo shoot, while US rapper Tyler the Creator has a very impressive collection of Cartiers, including a rare and very small Coulissant. Before you assume that this penchant for wearing dress watches outside of traditional suit-and-tie settings is something only celebrities are dabbling with, there are figures to prove this goes beyond the world of the privileged.
Pre-owned watch specialists Watchfinder has seen an 18 per cent increase in dress watch sales in the last year with a 233 per cent increase in sales of Cartier’s Santos de Cartier. In the last three years, searches for the term “dress watch” have shot up 72 per cent in the UK and 82 per cent globally.
IWC’s Portugieser has seen searches rise by 310 per cent over three years in the UK, with a 17 per cent rise last year. Another popular model is the Lange 1, from Glashutte-based manufacturer A. Lange & Sohne. “The resurgence of dressier taste in watches is likely driven by a combination of the broader quiet luxury movement but with a twist that maintains some of the
eccentricities of the last decade,” explains Michael Groffenberger, chief commercial officer at Watchfinder & Co. “Namely the styles are not the simple round Bauhaus forms of dress watches you may have seen in the past, but instead more exotic shapes and unique styles from the likes of Cartier and Lange.”
This could be partly driven by a change in the watch-buying demographic. The buyer who came to prominence in the 1990s was a more tribal purchaser. Think Alec Baldwin’s aggressively flashy Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross pointing at his Rolex Daydate and saying to a room of real estate salesmen: “You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch cost more than your car.” What mattered was the name on the dial because it meant everyone knew how big your bonus was. The watches it was acceptable to buy were the ones everyone else had, and usually, everyone had a Rolex.
Other brands got a look in, of course. Panerai became popular thanks to its appearances in films starring muscled men. Those who couldn’t spend years flipping DateJusts to get a Submariner found steel sportiness elsewhere at TAG
After a few years of trackpants and Zoom meetings, people are ready to show a bit of razzle-dazzle on their wrists
Heuer and Omega; the latter benefitting hugely from James Bond’s patronage. Royal Oaks became the name-drop du jour for the hip-hop community, with early adopters graduating to Richard Mille when their bank balance hit a certain figure.
These were all brands that ignited a desire in a particular community. There seems to be a shift away from this herd mentality and a rising interest in seeking out something ‘different’, be that watches not usually worn by men or vintage rarities, which tend to be more “dress” in design. The younger generation of watch buyers is most interested in finding a piece that suits their personal style.
Maybe it’s also, after a few years of trackpants and Zoom meetings, that people are ready to show a bit of razzledazzle. While a steel Submariner is an excellent, robust tool watch, it doesn’t bring the pizzazz the way a Royal Oak Mini does. Putting on an elegant dress watch is a simple way to add a touch of luxury to an outfit, even if all you are wearing is jeans and a jumper. So, go on, pick up a Panthere and prepare to bring dress into your everyday.
Fancy wild swimming with a little bit less of the ‘wild’? Stay in one of these exclusive lodges with access to outdoor lakes to chill your bones
Wild swimming has always been a middle class pursuit, but now you can stay in some terribly posh places to do it. New opening Avington Lakes is set in a quaint slice of countryside near Winchester, offering guests 12 degree natural lakes within which to reenergise
after a visit to their sauna, which itself has amazing views out onto the lake. You can hire a row boat, too, for an extra dose of quintessentially British country life, while the self-contained guest apartments dotted around the grounds are just dreamy.
Over in Sussex the South Lodge hotel has opened The Reeds, new super luxe accommodation framing a picturesque wild swimming lake. Don’t worry if zero
isn’t your preferred amount of degrees when it comes to submerging yourself – apartments come with their own hot tubs overlooking the water.
Summer might be over, but on Saltburn’s one year anniversary why not spend autumn celebrating the very best of the English countryside by acting like a slightly bonkers aristo and going for an unseasonal dip? Felix and Elspeth would be proud. l avington.com; exclusive.co.uk
The Georgian capital is one of the most geopolitically fascinating cities in the world, a place at the crossroads between east and west, says STEVE DINNEEN
Towering over the Georgian capital of Tbilisi is Mtatsminda Park, a Soviet-era fairground and gardens set atop a craggy hill. Accessed by a funicular railway, you will find a host of terrifying, creaky old amusement rides, including the 65-metre-high Giant Wheel, which seems to bow outwards over the
edge of a sheer cliff. Dotted around the park are the remnants of Soviet comms equipment; rusting satellite dishes, a vast radio tower. The amusements are what you might charitably call ‘low-fi’ – I would not recommend forking out the 20 Georgian lari (£5.60) for the House of Mirrors, for instance, a sad, reflective tunnel within which you bumble around for approximately three minutes like a daddy long legs trapped behind a window. But Mtatsminda is an excellent spot to pick up a few bottles of the local Natakhtari beer and gaze wistfully over one of the most geopolitically fascinating cities in Europe.
Bordering Russia to the North, Georgia’s position is at once prosperous and precarious. Following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 100,000 Russians moved here – most to Tbilisi – a massive influx for a nation of just 3.7 million. This helped send the economy into overdrive, with the price of housing inevitably following. There has been an uneasy detente between the two countries following the Russo-Georgian war of 2008, in which Putin redrew parts of the border in his
favour, but the fire is once again being stoked. Graffiti sprayed liberally across the capital’s grand old buildings is not subtle: “Nationalists of all countries go f**k yourself,” reads one slogan. “Russians f**k off,” reads another, with “c**ts” added below, as if an afterthought. You can buy “F**k Putin” hoodies at most of the street markets, if you’re looking for a souvenir.
I visited in April, on the anniversary of the 1989 “Tbilisi tragedy”, when the Soviet army killed 21 unarmed protestors. Commemorations of the massacre merged with protests over a controversial “foreign agents” bill passed by the governing Georgian Dream party, leading to days of heated clashes with police.
Hiking back from Mtatsminda Park, down Tbilisi’s perilously steep, winding streets, I met Vato Botsvadze, who had attended the 1989 protest. Botsvadze is the owner of Chacha Corner, a small but impeccably stocked shop selling the eponymous Georgian national spirit. He invited me to sit at his tiny counter and offered me a shot of the brandy-like drink, which I duly knocked back. It was warm, sweet, not unpleasant.
“How strong do you think that was?” he asked, smiling. I guessed around 40 per cent. He laughed, poured a splash onto the bar and set fire to it with his cigarette lighter, resulting in an impressive, blue flame.
“This chacha is 12 years old and at least 76 per cent!”
Given how the room began to pleasantly swim, I did not doubt this. I drank chacha with Botsvadze for an hour or so, trying various styles as he regaled me about life in Tbilisi. He had worked his way up in politics before opening one of Georgia’s only chacha retailers (most chacha is ‘homebrew’ and getting a licence to sell it is almost impossible, he says). He shows me a picture of him, aged 14, on 9 April 1989, in the hours before the first shots were fired: “We were fighting flags against tanks,” he sighed.
Botsvadze turns out to be a minor celebrity. His Instagram is full of videos of visitors drinking chacha and singing their national anthems; I politely declined breaking into a rendition of God Save the King.
It was dark as I stumbled out of Chacha Corner, meandering streets that are both grand and endearingly shabby. Georgia was once on the lucrative trade route from Naples up to St Petersburg, and you can see this heritage in the columned, gold-hued buildings.
Georgia isn’t just historically significant, however: it’s also one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world, home to a burgeoning tech industry. Clustered on street corners are retro-futuristic booths where you can pay your bills or buy bitcoin. It feels young, full of louche, independent bars, and cafes selling dumplings until 6am. Everywhere you go roads break into inviting little courtyards, neon lights spilling from within.
One of the most significant new developments in the Tbilisi building boom is the Paragraph Freedom Square hotel, a spectacular steel and glass creation in the centre of town. From the moment you walk in to find a famous Georgian pianist (or so I’m told) tinkling the ivories, you can tell it’s somewhere special. Designed by architectural firm Hausart Georgia, it’s filled with details reflecting aspects of Tbilisi culture: repeating patterns that replicate the city walls, fabrics inspired by centuries-old Georgian chokha clothing. Here the lobby isn’t just a place to stand with your luggage but a genuine social hub, dominated by a central bar where guests are invited to attend wine and cheese tastings (both wine and cheese are a Big Deal here).
After dinner at Paragraph’s excellent fine dining restaurant Ostigan, where international dishes are given a Georgian spin (a chocolate creation is shaped like a traditional winemaking pot, for instance), I took the lift to Paragraph’s Sky Bar Chinari, which offers panoramic views over the old town. As a steady stream of cocktails washed away the exertions of the day, I watched pleasure boats crawl across the Kura river and a hot air balloon – a permanent tourist attraction – rise and fall in place. A couple of floors below, a huge circular pool overlooks the same vista. During the turndown service, a “good night story” is left on your pillow, filling you in on some esoteric aspect of Georgian culture, with topics including “the Gelati Monastery Complex” (a compelling read).
Paragraph is one of many landmark new hotels in the city. A few minutes down the road, the Swissotel is a more business-focused offering, a smart affair decked out in bare wood. Rooms come complete with a fold-out gym and weights rack, should you fancy keeping up your workout regime while you’re away. And across town in the business district – a real change of pace from the bustling old town – you can find the giant Pullman Hotel, a poppy monument to Tbilisi’s economic boom, with suites so spacious and beds so vast you could spend your entire trip there, watching Netflix on the freestanding TV.
But you shouldn’t spend your trip watching Netflix. Tbilisi is a city best experienced stomach-first. Famous gastronomic creations include khachapuri (cheese-filled bread topped with an egg), meaty khinkali dumplings and skin-contact wine. You will not have to travel far to find these things – one of the first places I stumbled upon, Cafe Daphna, sells some of the most highly rated khinkali in the city. These dumplings are designed to be held by the twisted ‘nipple’ at the top and bitten in such a way as to catch the liquid contained within. Do not make my mistake and assume they are the size of Chinese dumplings – each one is as big as a fist and you will not get through a dozen (I gallantly tried and painfully failed).
For a comprehensive introduction to Georgian wine –an 8,000-year-old tradition using buried earthenware pots called qvevri – head to 8000 Vintages. Here they have more varieties than you could drink your way through in a year. It’s remarkable how much this amber liquid tastes like the orange wine now ubiquitous on the menus of hip London restaurants; the Georgians were doing it eight millennia before it was cool.
As you wander the streets of the old town, beyond the Leaning Clock Tower of Tbilisi, through a warren of squares and parks, you will spot a series of brick domes: Tbilisi’s famous sulphur baths. I booked a private pool and sauna at Gulo’s Thermal Spa, among the oldest in the city. For an hour, the subterranean heated pool, sauna and icy plunge pool are all yours (it’ll set you back between £30-£60) and for an extra fee you can get a wash and scrub by a no-nonsense Georgian masseuse. With its dim lights and quasi-religious atmosphere, it’s a wonderful way to unwind before emerging, hair still damp, into the warm Tbilisi night.
Should you want a more exclusive spa experience, book a spot at Banya No.1, the Georgian outpost of a London-based business. Located 45 minutes outside of Tbilisi in the mountainous resort of Kiketi, the drive is spectacular. The crumbling brickwork of the old town makes way for gleaming new developments, then vast, pastel-coloured Soviet housing blocks, which themselves recede into the distance as you snake your way up into the mountains.
Kiketi is a remote farming village that’s been redeveloped as an eco-resort, dotted with traditional wooden houses, modern shipping container apartments and stilted treehouses (one of which features the tree trunk in the centre of the bedroom). Jazz nights are held in restored, Soviet-era conservatories and yoga classes take place on the mountainside overlooking Tbilisi. Here you can enjoy more Georgian wine at the on-site winery, Tanini, where Revaz Vasadze makes natural qvevri skin-contact wines. If you ask nicely he’ll set up a tasting, expounding the virtues of various Georgian grapes and explaining how the length of skin-contact affects the flavour.
Banya No.1 (a ‘banya’ is a traditional Russian steam bath where you go to eat, wash and socialise) is among the most spectacular I have ever seen; buried Teletubby-style beneath the ground, you emerge onto a terrace overlooking a waterfall. I booked a three-hour session including a parenie treatment, which involves being expertly beaten with handfuls of hot birch and oak leaves in a superheated sauna before taking a dip in a freezing plunge pool on the terrace. The afternoon, curated by Andrei, a parenie master from Siberia, also includes multiple body scrubs and intense aromatherapy, facilitated by chucking infused water into the sauna’s brick oven. Andrei takes his job seriously: “I had no bathroom growing up,” he tells me. “Only the banya – if you wanted to wash: banya. To eat: banya.”
Armed with a pair of fans, he is a wizard of heat and cold. He chases in gusts of cool air from outside then coaxes hot air down from the top of the sauna. He’s like a free-form jazz musician – “and on the steam tonight: Andrei!” – and the experience is unlike anything else: overwhelming, intensely pleasurable, occasionally painful. When you emerge from that outdoor pool you have never felt so alive.
It feels like a microcosm of Tbilisi, a city of contrasting extremes: relaxing and invigorating, hedonistic and healthy. There is nowhere in Europe like it and there has never been a better time to visit.
l To book the Paragraph Freedom Square hotel go to marriott.com; for the Swissotel Tbilisi go to swissotel.com; for the Pullman Axis Towers go to pullman.accor.com; To book Banya No.1 go to gobanya.ge
With private heli-pads, NASA-backed technologies and highpowered guests, does Europe’s top brain spa really deliver what it promises? LIZZIE POOK dons a robe and slippers to investigate
I’m sitting in a darkened cinema room surrounded by empty seats. It is quiet. A thick bead of condensation inches down the carton of ionizing mineral water at my elbow. I pick it up, take a slow sip and blink, focusing on the huge screen in front of me. Emblazoned metres-high in purple, red and yellow, are my very own brainwaves. Above them, like a heartrate monitor, looms a jagged graph of all the electrical activity taking place within my skull.
This is a normal Tuesday at SHA Wellness Clinic’s high-fangled brain-training unit. The famed medical spa – set in the foothills of the Sierra Helada mountains in southern Spain – has been drawing in billion-dollar business owners for decades, detoxing them with colonic hoses, acupuncture needles and cactus-studded mountain views. But it’s SHA’s cognitive performance technologies that are currently setting it apart from other high-end medical spas. Their ‘brain boot camp’ offers two pioneering (and somewhat controversial) treatments. You won’t find
Transcranial Current Stimulation – used by Navy SEALs to whittle their brains into elite condition – and Brain Photobiomodulation, a treatment NASA originally developed for its sunlight-starved astronauts, on many other spa menus around the world.
The unit is aimed at those suffering from mild memory loss, executives who want to ‘stay in the zone’ and guests who simply want to enhance their brain function. The four to 28 day retreats blend the comfort of a luxury bells-and-whistles spa with neurological assessments, a brain-boosting detox menu, and intensive cognitive rehab. It’s all incredibly sci-fi, but for now, I’m being eased into things with a glimpse at what exactly is going on inside my head.
“Here, we can see your brain is in complete overdrive.” Buttoned up in a stiff white coat and spectacles, Dr Bruno Ribeiro do Couto gestures to the squiggles on the screen. “You are clearly more relaxed when you are busy but these gamma waves,” he points to a big block of orange twitching spasmodically, “they suggest to me that you are someone who suffers from a
very busy brain, and compulsive, sometimes intrusive, thoughts.” I swallow and adjust the Velcro strap around my forehead.
He’s got me pegged. This guy deals with elite brains on a daily basis – studying the grey matter of Olympic athletes, billionaires and those who have suffered catastrophic brain injuries. So of course it only took him minutes to establish what’s going on in my humble noggin. Because the truth is, not only do I suffer from crippling brain fog on a daily basis (something that afflicts large swathes of the post-Covid working population) but my anxiety levels are also debilitatingly, distractingly high. It’s something of a hornets’ nest up there. You really don’t want to be poking it.
“Do you ever feel like you have so much energy you can read other people’s minds?” Professor Ribeiro asks me later in his office. I almost recoil at the proposition. It’s not the mind-reading that has me alarmed; but the conceit of having such endless amounts of energy that there might possibly be a spare modicum to go around. He takes my medical history and I disclose a couple of
degenerative brain conditions that run in my family. He clicks his tongue softly against the roof of his mouth. “I want to run some tests.”
He challenges me to a series of quick on-screen exercises crafted to assess reaction times, attention span and long-term recollection. Circles illuminate, which I have to tap quickly. Numbers flash across the screen and I have to identify sequences and patterns. I get 100 per cent on all of them. Easy. I start to wonder if I’ve wasted a plane ticket. However. The final test interrogates my brain’s working memory and I stumble straight away. Six boxes open and close to reveal icons; I must identify each matching pair. Oof. I am not good at it. After an embarrassing few minutes, Dr Ribeiro taps away at his keyboard and the computer spits out my results. I scored 20 per cent. “That’s interesting for a person of your age.” He raises an eyebrow. “This is something I’d normally see from someone whose brain is exceptionally tired and stressed. You need much more time than the average person to take in anything new. Your working memory
Clockwise from top left: SHA Wellness in Spain isn’t just about treatments – it’s also a place to chill; A woman partakes in a therapy session; the Transcranial Current Stimulation cap; The stunning resort
is shot. You’re not at burnout yet. But you’re close.”
And so I am sent off for further investigations. On my second day, a ‘bio-energy therapist’ takes a reading of the electrical impulses in my body using something that looks a lot like a biro. She leans back in her chair and tuts. “Jeez. Hyper, much?” Later, I visit the on-site medical specialist to tell her about my chronic lack of energy. She orders me to lie down on the table and starts prodding my stomach. “Exactly as I thought,” she says. “Your gut is imbalanced. It is swollen and tender and will be having a major impact on what is happening in your head.”
Ultimately, I am prescribed a ‘holistic’ approach to tackling my brain fatigue and reducing high levels of inflammation in my body. Over the next few days, I’m massaged, buffed, stuck with acupuncture needles and wrapped in cosseting seaweed compresses. I do all the things that would usually dwindle to the bottom of my priority list back home. I take yoga and cooking classes. I swim every day. I even spend 10 minutes every
morning stretching.
And honesty, all of this ‘self-care’ feels just as beneficial as the high-tech brain training stuff. It’s as if simply taking a break can work wonders; who knew? I do try the Transcranial Current Stimulation though – a low intensity electrical current is delivered to my prefrontal cortex via a rubber cap fitted with electrodes. I am
My bio-energy therapist takes a reading of my electrical impulses, leans back in her chair and tuts. ‘Jeez. Hyper, much?’
nervous at the thought of my brain being ‘changed’ but, actually, it feels like little more than an itch on the scalp, and I do emerge from it feeling like my brain fog has lifted.
In the end, I feel well. Exceptionally well, in fact. I emerge from the shiny doors of SHA energised yet calm; focused, motivated and thinking clearly for once. But… after a day back at my computer the fog soon sets back in and it takes just a few hours for me to feel like my working memory is back wallowing in the lower echelons.
It turns out keeping my brain in ‘elite’ condition while I have a life to live, family to worry about, and work to occupy my (many anxious) thoughts is a tall order. But I do feel like I now have the tools to give it a boost now and again: supplements, mindfulness, regular swimming sessions at my local pool, and (if I ever make it to CEO status) Dr Ribeiro on speed dial. l Starting rates for a Deluxe Suite at SHA Wellness Clinic are from €400. A four-day Rebalance and Energise Programme starts from €2,300 per person. Visit shawellness.com
The Hope Treatment Center in Thailand specializes in affordable and effective substance misuse recovery programs. Our life-changing approach combines a range of therapies including, CBT, addiction counselling, trauma therapy, and relapse prevention. Our inspiring facility is situated on the coast amongst serene beaches and colorful Buddhist temples. Our guests enjoy comfortable and well-appointed accommodation, massage, Thai boxing, Yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, healthy Thai cuisine, and the opportunity to explore local islands and culture.
Other benefits include:
l Individual Counselling
l Daily Therapeutic Groups
l Psychological Recovery Tools
l Recovery-Program
l Relapse-Prevention
l Mindfulness Coaching
l Morning Meditation Groups
l Aftercare Groups & Support
l Muay Thai Boxing Training
l Fitness & Yoga
l Traditional Thai Massage
l Fun Weekend Excursions
Panama is a relatively undiscovered gem featuring one of the wonders of the modern world. ADAM HAY NICHOLLS goes in search of magic in the land of the hat
Ispot a cayman a couple of metres away on the umber riverbank. It is as still as a park bench, its jaws wide open. I’m not describing a Porsche Cayman with its bonnet up awaiting a recovery truck, I’m talking about a crocodile with a hungry look in its eyes. It surveys me with malintent.
I’m chuntering down the Gatun River in Panama’s Chagres National Park at walking pace aboard a cigar-shaped boat. The water’s so shallow that at one point my guide gets out to push. I’m not sure I’d risk my legs. We’re heading to lunch with an indigenous tribe who live on the banks. Barefoot, the Emberá women wear colourful dresses and the men loincloths which leave little to the imagination. They live in stilted huts with thatched roofs, expertly carve wooden instruments and trinkets, and weave baskets and beads. They have an innate
understanding of the land. The village elder, Aleppio, picks a plant called dormidera, which is used to aid sleep and reduce pain, and hands it to me. I didn’t realise I wasn’t meant to eat it.
NASA sent the Apollo 11 crew to this very jungle to learn survival skills from the Emberá tribe before heading to the moon
Suddenly my entire mouth goes numb, like I’ve been prepped by a dentist. According to my guide, Hernan, NASA sent the Apollo 11 crew to this very jungle to learn survival skills from the Emberá before heading to the moon. I hope the advice included doublechecking first if you should put space stuff in your cake-hole. They’ll have been well-fed prior to the mission, anyway, if my meal of tilapia river fish, fried in orange-red achiote spice and served in a plantain leaf, is anything to go by.
Spanish for ‘Old Quarter’, the Casco Viejo is Panama City’s buzzy and historic district and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Jutting into Panama Bay, it’s a labyrinthine web of narrow dusty streets, neoclassical palm-lined squares, quirky churches and Spanish buildings, many of which were built in the 17th century. Having been a lawless ghetto just a decade ago, it’s undergoing a
phenomenal renaissance that has attracted major real estate investment and an atmospheric cocktail, coffee and cooking scene.
I’m staying at the American Trade Hotel, overlooking the elegant Plaza Tomas Herrera, a cinematic stucco colonial haunt which was built in 1917 with high ceilings and mosaic floors, and has been chicly renovated with dark wooden furniture, panels and flooring constructed from trees that came down in Nicaragua’s Hurricane Felix or were salvaged from the Panama Canal. Originally, this was an apartment building for the Panamanian elite but, like much of Casco Viejo, was abandoned in the 1970s. Gangs inhabited the building – as many as 20 rival gangs! – for the next 30 years. The hotel doesn’t whitewash this; images of graffiti the thugs left decorate the stone staircase walls. It gives the place a bit of edge.
The basement of the five-storey building contains an acclaimed jazz club, Danilo’s, named after Grammy-winning Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez, who used to play with Dizzy Gillespie. Sadly,
Jutting into Panama Bay, Casco Viejo is a once-lawless, labyrinthine web of narrow, dusty streets and neoclassical palm-lined squares
it’s shut during my two-night stay, so I venture across the square to the Pedro Mandinga Rum Bar. The jazz isn’t live, but the vintage salsa vinyl collection is worth the visit as, of course, is the rum. This is the flagship bar of the Pedro Mandinga brand (there’s one other, in Bogata), Panama’s first craft rum distillery, named in homage to Sir Francis Drake’s pathfinder around the dangerous Caribbean coast. The rum is distilled from raspadura, which is boiled down from the juice of hand-harvested cane, grown on a family-run farm in Chiriqui, which is where the massive reforestation is taking place in the west of the country bordering Costa Rica. It turns out the owner Brad and I share a close mutual chum in Brooklyn. Brad, who emigrated here from New Mexico, was a chemist before becoming a craft beer brewer and master distiller. He is the ideal wingman for a late-night tour
of Central American libations, and we finish a jet-lag-pounding evening at The Strangers Club, now sadly closed, although there are many like it still in business. This, when I close my eyes, is how I always imagined Panama; the punters – wearing the appropriate hats – are sat at the bar playing dominoes, the lights are dim and fans whirr overhead. It’s where you might find John le Carré’s tailor, Harry Pendel, meeting his handler. The drinks are as strong as a musket shot to the face.
The reason it was called Strangers, and the hotel is called the American Trade, is because of the ships that pass through here. If you come to Panama you must visit the canal. One of the seven wonders of the modern world, it cuts 51 miles from the north coast of Panama to the south, connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific at Central America’s narrowest point, and saving mariners at least three weeks of travel by avoiding the hazardous
Cape Horn at the base of South America, or the even less popular Bering Strait that divides the United States and Russia.
Twelve 34-metre wide locks lift vessels up and down a height of 26m. It’s mesmeric to watch, and very slow. The viewing
If you come to Panama you must visit the canal. One of the seven wonders of the modern world, it cuts 51 miles from the north to the south
platform is crammed with tourists jostling for the perfect selfie.
My proudest photo, though, was taken shortly after take-off to Costa Rica. From the air, one is able to capture two oceans in the same shot: forests, fields and the aeroplane’s wing separating the Atlantic from the Pacific.
This was part two of my eco-lux adventure, with Costa Rica reputed to be the most eco-conscious country in the world. I flew into San José and drove three hours north along the winding mountain roads to the Tabacón resort, in the shadow of the Arenal volcano. It’s been dormant since 2010, which is not exactly bygone. In 1968, it erupted unexpectedly and violently, destroying the town below.
Arenal National Park is also one of the zip-lining capitals of the world, and boasts the most breathtaking views of both the volcano and the man-made hydroelectric Lake Arenal (which powers
l American Trade Hotel, Panama City and Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa, Costa Rica are members of Small Luxury Hotels of the World; slh.com
l American Trade Hotel offers rooms starting from £236 per night. Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa offers rooms starting from £320 per night
l KLM flies year-round to Panama City and seasonally to San Jose, Costa Rica from Heathrow via Amsterdam Schiphol; klm.co.uk
12 per cent of Costa Rica). There are eight zip-lines between the canyons, 200m above the rainforest floor, each around a mile long, flying over and sometimes under the tree canopies.
Having done a passable impression of tropical bird life, I then went on a guided trek through the jungle, across hanging rope bridges that bring to mind Indiana Jones. My guide, Gabriella, points out the strangler fig tree, a parasitic nightmare which cuts off circulation to its neighbours’ roots and places its seed in their bark. We spot several tiny eyelash vipers, almost invisible on the green foliage, which despite their size will kill you stone dead in two hours.
There are 142 other species of snake within this jungle, 23 of which are venomous. Bullet ants and tarantula hawk wasps take first and second place, respectively, in the chart of things you least want to be stung by. Much cuter and friendlier is the kouati, a racoon-like
creature with a long tail and bear-esque face, which puts on a show for us, scrambling along branches and jumping from tree to tree.
My accommodation is, like the American Trade Hotel, a member of
We spot several tiny eyelash vipers, almost invisible on the green foliage, which despite their size will kill you stone dead in two hours
Small Luxury Hotels of the World, and is utterly unique. The Tabacón Thermal Resort & Spa sits on 900 acres of lush primary and secondary rainforest and has sustainability, health and relaxation at its core. Nature comes into every experience it offers, not least its natural springs which are heated by the volcano. The temperatures range from between 25 and 50 degrees centigrade. There are waterfalls, cascading pools and hidden bathing spots surrounded by botanicals. There are so many pools you’re sure to find several with no one in them, and nobody will stop you taking a martini glass in to bathe, which is how I conduct all my ablutions.
What we have here is a five-star resort which blends seamlessly into the surrounding environment but doesn’t scrimp on the spoiling. With a hot waterfall at my feet and a cocktail in my hand, I think of Costa Rica’s motto: ‘Pura Vida’. Translation: ‘Life is great’.
Combining service worthy of White Lotus with facilities straight out of Succession, Chalet Inoko in Val D’Isere is among the most spectacularly opulent ski destinations in the world, says ADAM BLOODWORTH
Just say yes.” This is the mantra demanded of his staff by Armond, the long-suffering hotel manager in the inaugural season of The White Lotus. “Just smile and say yes.”
That satire on the super wealthy was often exaggerated – staff don’t often defecate in guests’ suitcases, at least not to my knowledge – but the service principle will be familiar to anyone who’s ever stayed at the sort of property so posh that it boasts its own scent.
You’ve really got to push your luck not to hear an immediate ‘yes’ after checking into Purple Ski’s Chalet Inoko in Val D’Isere. Last season they allowed a guest to fly in their own personal mattress; anything to ensure you’re match fit for the slopes after a night on the schnapps. Another time, a member of staff pushed through a heaving nightclub to relieve a guest of their ski boots, delivering evening shoes after they got too carried away on kir royales and let the afternoon slip into night. Why bother going home to change when someone will bring the pearls to you?
There was one moment when the ‘just say yes’ formula was challenged: we’d been fantasising over Alpine cliches and requested our private chef make cheese fondue for dinner that evening. But Pierre, who’s been cooking for royalty and the A-List for 30 years, wasn’t into the idea. “I can make it, but it’s not gastronomically interesting.” There was no way back. Fondue was out.
Ordinary is not the word to describe anything about Chalet Inoko or Val D’Isere, other than its guests and their sub-par fondue demands (good news, we realised Pierre wouldn’t know if we had fondue on the slopes at lunchtime so everyone ended up happy). Like all good chalets, Inoko is invisible to anyone without the front door key, cloaked halfway up a mountain in a mess of fir trees, its driveway a sufficient amount of twists and turns upwards from town so as to prohibit onlookers. From the hot tub on the balcony you get the opposite effect, with the village dating back to the 1600s sprawled promiscuously in front of us. Not that we went: why would you when you have a decent sound system, floor-to-ceiling glass windows onto the valley and an entertaining space big enough for 14 guests and 10 staff to get comfy?
After a day on the slopes there was further intrepid exploration to do in Chalet Inoko. There is an indoor pool, sauna, cinema room and lounge with a floor plan big enough for every Val D’Isere local to take a snooze on if they laid down side-by-side. When we explored we took glasses of the unlimited (and very decent) wine and champagne. We got so spoiled that by the end of the holiday we were upset when the staff poured us flutes of Veuve Clicquot instead of Taittinger. Staff silently wait
for guests to rise; I popped into the dining area the first morning and my room had been relaid minutes later with machine-like precision. On the first day it was unnerving but it’s even more unnerving how quickly you can get used to service like this.
My friends and I decided we’d better go skiing before we started demanding croissants with our names baked into the tops. You mightn’t be surprised to know that blacked-out Mercs are parked on the drive and staff pack your equipment for you. I considered lifting my feet up and asking the team to place them into my skis; perhaps they could slide down the mountain for me too? I had begun to question everything. Now I understand why celebrities can be such prima donnas.
Val D’Isere is increasingly the place to go. It has always had a reputation as a serious skier’s resort, with a challenging selection of red and black runs. But at 1,850 metres above sea level and with 60 percent of the skiing above 2,500 metres, it is also more immune to the effects of climate change than nearby resorts like Meribel and Val Thorens. It’s where the ski pros go on holiday: Ski Sunday presenter and Olympian Graham Bell was knocking back beer peche in apres hangout Rosee Blanche when we visited, a fitting spot to watch the sun descend over the foot of the slope leading from La Folie Douce, where live saxophonists riff on radio-friendly songs and dancers wearing revealing outfits entertain groups of families cutting shapes on table tops.
New for 2024 is a faster gondola to reach the Pisaillas Glacier, ascending 3,185 metres to get you to that Kodak moment at the top in under seven minutes.
If you fancy eating out, Airelles Val d’Isère, at the foot of the slopes, has an imaginative new Italian menu. This restaurant is one of the oldest in town and inside black and white photos of the venue in the 1940s celebrate the restaurant’s halcyon days as a nightclub. Elsewhere, resort staple Les Fils à Maman is opening an on-slope outpost in an old ski chalet serving a nostalgic menu of mountain classics (finally, fondue).
If you can’t bear the wait then make the most of the resort’s First Tracks scheme on opening weekend between 30 November and 1 December, when ski passes are priced at the reduced cost of €61 Euros a day (the season runs through until 4 May 2025).
Or don’t ski at all – just sit in Chalet Inoko and drink champagne for a week while your every whim is catered for. Such is the luxury of being a member of the elite set.
l A seven-night stay at Purple Ski’s Chalet Inoko, Val D’Isere starts from €35,870 on a catered basis. For more information and to book visit purpleski.com; Oxygène Ski (oxygene.ski) arranged Adam’s ski lesson and the Val d’Isère tourist office (valdisere.com) assisted with his ski pass.
These alpine chalets are fit for a king, or indeed a sleb of the
– expect your every whim to be catered to
Many people own supercars but only a select few own an apartment designed to reflect their design. DarGlobal CEO
ZIAD EL CHAAR describes two of his most outrageous projects
Do you love your car? Enough to sleep in it? Or, more accurately, do you love your car enough to sleep in a residence built from the ground up to reflect its shape, its personality, its philosophy? A growing number of (extremely rich) people do, with such branded residences popping up from Dubai to Spain to Miami. We spoke to luxury real estate developer DarGlobal boss Ziad El Chaar about what it takes to create an apartment worthy of a supercar with details about two of his incredible new developments.
DESCRIBE DAVINCI TOWER
DaVinci Tower curves over the Dubai skyline, overlooking the Dubai Canal, with views of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
HOW DOES THE RESIDENCE REFLECT PAGANI?
Taking a supercar-brand and trying to reflect the design features into a home is a challenge. We needed to strike a careful balance between being classical while also modern. Everyone thinks that they are two opposing descriptors but actually, they can be used in tandem. There are ties between a home and a car that people often don’t realise. For us, it’s about how the customer will experience the environment – that’s the common feature and how we have made Utopia feel like a Pagani car.
WHAT ABOUT THE EXTERIOR?
Before you even step foot in the building you can tell it is a feat of design excellence. As well as featuring the world’s first-ever Pagani-inspired spaces and bespoke interior furnishings from the car manufacturer, the exterior is architecturally striking. You can spot a Pagani car from a mile off – and this gravity-defying sphere on the Dubai skyline is equally as unique, with the tower imbued with a dynamic aesthetic that embraces unconventional space.
WHO WAS INVOLVED IN THE DESIGN?
It was a real honour to work with the man himself –Horacio Pagani, founder and chief designer of Pagani Automobili. It was Pagani’s first foray into interior design and Dar Global’s first partnership with a supercar brand. Despite coming from two different industries, we were both committed to delivering unparalleled luxury.
HOW EASY WAS IT TO REALISE THE VISION?
The vision was very much about making the home resemble a machine and this was our guiding thought when conceptualising the design aspects. It was also about taking what makes Pagani ‘Pagani’ and reflecting this in the homes. We went back to the original ambition of Horacio Pagani: to create the most beautiful car – or in our case, residence – in the world.
TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE DETAILS
One of the key aspects for us was incorporating technology and the decades of research and development Pagani has invested into its materials. Automotive leather is used throughout Pagani’s vehicles, and we wanted to reflect this in our homes, but that still have the characteristics of a sofa leather. It’s all in the detail really – taking features from a Pagani motor vehicle and incorporating them throughout the home. Things like exhaust features on the walls, ceiling lights looking like headlights –these subtly reflect Pagani.
HOW DO THEY REFLECT THE LOCAL AREA?
The Utopia residences exude the elegance of Downtown Dubai and Business Bay, which are known for their deluxe shopping, fine dining, cultural attractions and recreational facilities. We wanted to design a residence that suits the lifestyle, needs and wants of this audience – the type of person that, after exploring the malls and tucking into a five-star meal, wants to come home to a bed that reflects the visionary excellence of Pagani.
DESCRIBE TIERRA VIVA
Tierra Viva is an enclave of luxury villas, drawing inspiration from the supercar brand Lamborghini. Situated on a hillside, each villa occupies a distinct elevation, with unhindered views of the Mediterranean Sea.
HOW DOES THE RESIDENCE REFLECT PAGANI?
The objective was to create a limited-edition residence in which every single detail reflects the DNA of Lamborghini. This involves taking the essence of the design from flagship models and delivering the Lamborghini stamp to each villa. For example, the villa’s rear exterior resembles the sharply sculptured lines of a Ruvuelto’s silhouette while the pools use the shape of a Huracan’s iconic headlights. Even the frames of the floor to ceiling windows were inspired by the angularity of the grill found on a Lamborghini Urus.
WHO WAS INVOLVED IN THE DESIGN?
This project was a joint effort between the automobile design teams at Lamborghini and DarGlobal. It was important to make sure Tierra Viva became a success for two brands that share the attributes of exclusivity, design and passion. To partner with a supercar brand wasn’t simply about sticking a name on a building, but working with those who understand Lamborghini’s heritage and then implementing it into the architecture and interiors, while giving Lamborghini the creative freedom to implement their philosophy. It became clear that we were working with those who really understood the shapes, materials, and palette of the brand – including chief exec Stephen Winckleman –therefore making the project authentic.
HOW EASY WAS IT TO REALISE THE VISION?
A big part was ensuring each villa possesses unobstructed views across the Mediterranean Sea. Anyone who has been to Costa del Sol will know about its beautiful blue sea and mountain terrain and with a plot in a location such as ours, maximising this has been incredibly important. This is helped by large sliding doors that effectively extend the lounge into the outdoor patio and pool. The result is a seamless space into the horizon of the Mediterranean.
TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE DETAILS
Anyone fortunate enough to own a Lamborghini shouldn’t have to hide it away in an underground garage and so building an elevator that brings owners’ supercars into the villa itself was something we really wanted to incorporate into the design. What makes this more impactful is that the car sits within a glass confine centrally in the building, meaning owners’ can admire their Lamborghini right from the comfort of their sofas - made from Lamborghini leather to match!
HOW DO THEY REFLECT THE LOCAL AREA?
Costa Del Sol is a vibrant and attractive area hosting stylish clubs, restaurants and hotels as well as breathtaking beaches. Benahavís meanwhile ranks as one of the wealthiest municipalities in Spain and is one of the most desirable places in Costa Del Sol to own property. It is an area of exclusivity, which is reflected greatly in this project’s uniqueness and limited-edition status as the first branded residence in the south of Spain.
Normal People author Sally Rooney’s latest novel, Intermezzo, is the most hotly anticipated book of the year. ANNA MOLONEY dives in
Despite having never read a Sally Rooney novel before this summer, I already felt I had a grasp on what one was: clever, literary, Dublin-centric but, perhaps above all, sad. Normal People had wrenched apart the hearts of my peers (one friend found herself unable to stop speaking in soft, breathy tones after watching the TV adaptation). Rooney was leading the Irish literary revival: dark, moody, and cursed by generational trauma.
But when this was put to Rooney, she was perplexed: “I don’t think my books are that sad, are they?” she replied when one journalist mentioned the ‘sad girl autumn’ her fans were anticipating ahead of the release of her new novel Intermezzo. “I find my books quite optimistic,” she added, optimistically.
Author intention and reader reception are not always fated to align, but the problem here seems larger than mere miscommunication.
The rise of the so-called ‘sad girl’ has been in motion for some time: the heroin chic of the 1990s, the Tumblr gloom of the early 2010s, and now the sad girl summers and autumns of the 2020s. Musically it has been particularly pronounced (think Billie Eilish, Boygenius, the revival of Lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift’s turn from glittery pop to the aptly-titled Tortured Poets Department) but the literary scene (Blue Sisters, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, the elevation of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz as ‘literary it girls’) has done much heavy lifting, too. As a glamorisation of female sadness, it is naturally problematic, but Rooney’s part in the phenomena – in no small part the result of a culture that wishes to neatly package the female experience – is unfortunate rather than complicit.
Still, Rooney now comes with a framework that is larger than her: we are aware of her legacy, we are aware we might want to say clever things about her work to our peers, we are aware that, especially if we are 20-something, fringe-wearing, tote-toting young women, we may either become stereotypes or, worse, ‘pick-mes’.
(For the uninitiated, a pick-me is someone who tries to prove they’re not like the rest, or, more specifically, ‘not like other girls’.)
‘Like’ or ‘dislike’ no longer seem innocent terms, but weighted judgements.
With all this in mind, I approached Intermezzo with some trepidation.
Unlike Rooney’s previous novels, Intermezzo focuses on two male characters: Peter, a hotshot Dublin lawyer in his early thirties, and Ivan, his younger, dorkier, competitive chess-playing brother, who have just lost their father. The novel tracks their immediate reckoning with grief, their tempestuous relationship with each other, and, of course, their respective travails in love, flipping between their perspectives throughout. Despite the book’s marketing, which has focused on the dynamic of the brothers, it was these romances that felt like the book’s main focus. Ivan and Peter
themselves only share three scenes – a shame, as this was probably the novel’s most compelling relationship. These were the scenes that made me most sympathetic towards Peter – a necessary contrast to his supposedly gruelling love life, which involves him being fawned over by two women: one, his university sweetheart Sylvia, now a Trinity literary professor, who offers the warmth and emotional experience of an old lover; the other, the young, wild, carefree, sometime sex worker Naomi, who offers everything Sylvia does not. If this sounds like a crude binary, well, it is. “Sylvia in a silk blouse buttoned at the wrists and Naomi in a yellowish quarter-zip fleece,” Peter describes. “The one voice rich low golden and the other with the clear high purity of a bell.” Experience vs youth; comfort vs excitement; discipline vs hedonism. Yet both are beautiful. Both are intelligent. And both love Peter. These are the choices Sylvia and Naomi represent.
Frustratingly, despite each knowing Peter is in love with the other (being all-knowing is one of Sylvia and Naomi’s shared characteristics), neither fosters any real resentment about it.
That two intelligent women would fawn over one dysfunctional man is in itself not unbelievable, but that neither Naomi or Sylvia succumb to jealousy makes them painfully, painfully good (not to mention awfully, awfully convenient for our hero Peter). This may feel like a win after decades of stories that have pitted women against one another, but we shouldn’t have to make martyrs of women to make them feminist. The result is that Sylvia and Naomi feel more like tropes than people, which, even if the tropes are flattering, is hardly the nuanced depiction of real people Rooney is supposed to excel at.
But perhaps I have fallen into the tropey traps of Rooneyism itself. Do her characters need to be realistic to be successful? Do I have to relate to them? Do I need to like them? Of course not. And Intermezzo is, in many ways, a success: it’s compelling, it feels unique, it forced me to reconsider my own preconceptions about love and relationships. And perhaps one way to explore the limitations of tropes is to immerse oneself in them. So here’s to sad girl autumn, even if you don’t like Sally Rooney.
When ‘Bad Girls of Ancient Greece: Myths and Legends from the Baddies that Started It All’ landed on my desk this summer, I was dismayed but not surprised. Feminist retellings of ancient myths have long been in vogue – and many of them are good, from Margaret Atwood’s 2005 The Penelopiad to Madeleine Miller’s Tiktok-revered Circe. But, as with all things, there is a line – and a bubblegum pink hardback profiling the “wayward wives, mad mothers… and damsels, that quite frankly, caused others A LOT of stress in the ancient world” crossed mine. Imposing feminist credentials on a pre-feminist world is not always graceful.
But the girlbossification of Medusa is just one side of this bronzed, ancient coin, with classics having been simultaneously embraced by the not-so-feminist in recent years. Former President Donald Trump’s advisors, for example, were schooled on the tracts of ancient military historian Thucydides to help them approach US-China relations. His then-chief strategist (now imprisoned for federal fraud) Steve Bannon opted for “Sparta”, a civilisation famed for its militaristic values, as his computer password. “Can’t recommend The Iliad enough!” Elon Musk xeeted in August, linking to an audiobook version of The Odyssey, which he recommended listening to at 1.5 speed (best to absorb difficult ancient literature quickly, they always say).
Meanwhile, all men, of course, think of the Roman Empire daily.
So who’s right: do we need to cancel Homer, or just republish him in pink? The answer, of course, is not so simple. Asked by Vox about the validity of an alt-right interpretation of classical history, historian Sean Illing said that, while simplistic, it wasn’t fundamentally wrong. “The fact is that many societies in classical antiquity were very patriarchal, and misogynistic ideas can be found in many canonical texts. The question is how to interpret the text and how to decide what it means today.” Ah, that chestnut – always taught at school but generally forgotten afterwards – to read critically!
The classics are cherished for a reason, but the tales were always meant to be retold and reshaped. In this way, the reader is empowered – and must tread carefully.
How I fell into the world of Dungeons & Dragons and what it taught me about life as an investment reporter (kind of)
Our gnome bard was attempting to woo the lord of the manor when it happened. A banshee had exploded out of the floor, sending guards fleeing and instantly petrifying my pet direwolf. Our orc barbarian was drunk at the time, leaving him utterly useless, so it all fell on me to calm the banshee or, if necessary, banish her back to the hell plane from whence she came. It wasn’t all that different from a normal day at City AM, now I think about it.
I first encountered Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) – like many others – as part of the plot of Netflix drama Stranger Things. There, it is very much portrayed as a game for pre-teen nerds, a relic of the 1980s of interest only to true obsessives.
My gateway drug was podcasts –my favourite being Not Another DnD Podcast – which allow you to dip your toe into DnD without setting up hours-long roleplaying sessions with reluctant friends. But sure enough, listening to incredibly funny comedians fight dragons, kill gods, or enter a giant wrestling competition, made me want to do the same.
The final push came from the pandemic. The only way I could see any of my friends was sitting outside, so we would camp out on the steps of one of our flats (none of us could afford a garden) and roll dice. We still play today, usually inside while drinking beer,
although sometimes over Zoom if we can’t convince our two friends from Brighton to make the journey up.
Our characters vary between campaigns, but we’re usually joined by at least one beefcake who is only good at hitting stuff (normally a barbarian or fighter), one healer (clerics, druids, and paladins), and one charismatic yet irritating halfling (think hobbits without a lawsuit from the Tolkien estate). Our characters rarely match our personalities: it is far more fun to pretend to be the total opposite of what you’re stuck with
Picking a totally off the wall character can help you figure out different ways of thinking: Imagine a situation where you arrive at the big bad evil guy’s castle. How are you going to get in? Try and charm the guard and get through the front door? Sneak in a window? Or just charge straight in? Any and all solutions are acceptable, as long as you have the skill set and are able to persuade your Dungeon Master that
My favourite character of all was my dragonborn paladin Kalvaxus, an egomaniac who ended up beefing with the god from whom he got all his religious magic (it didn’t end well for him).The first ever campaign I ran ended with my friends fighting a massive white dragon; it was quickly put to a halt once they realised they had a spell that could turn him into a chicken. Surely that’s a lesson any of us could take into our day jobs.
