A cartoon in the New Yorker in 1968 showed a city street with the word ‘sex’ scrawled over doorways, in windows, on trucks and water towers, and a matronly pedestrian saying to her male companion: ‘I suppose we have Helen Gurley Brown to thank for this.’ The Gurley Brown who emerges as a kitten with …
There are two ways the child of an unpredictable and wild parent can go: the Lindsay Lohan route or the fictional, but recognisable, way of Saffy (daughter of Ab Fab’s Edina). An old friend of author Ariel Leve’s mother told Leve’s boss after meeting Ariel again as an adult: ‘I always wondered how that little …
Cyndi Lauper is talking to me at the most unrock-star hour of 7:30am from a tour bus somewhere in America – possibly, she thinks, Florida. It is, she says. “so cruel”, but there’s stuff to promote and she is a helluva trooper. There is something extra discombobulating about her much-commented-on adenoidal Brooklyn accent (she was …
A summer holiday in the Thirties with the Kennedys at their Hyannis Port compound, just above the elbow of Cape Cod, might have seemed an entrancing proposition – but the reality sounds rather more stressful. Yes, there were endless days swimming and diving, water-skiing and sailing, with table tennis and board games on the rare …
Florence Welch’s Stockwell home perfectly channels the psychedelic, crazy-old-lady vibe of Granny Takes a Trip, the legendary boutique at the unfashionable end of King’s Road that closed its doors in 1974. Nothing about the pretty, unassuming entrance of the Georgian terraced house — ten minutes from her childhood home in Camberwell, and the street where …
Sofie Grabol – the Danish actress much loved for her portrayal of Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (with jumper) in the Scandi-noir thriller, The Killing – is explaining why she has a conflicted relationship with her comfort zone. Sometimes she doesn’t want to venture from it. Meeting new people, for instance, is challenging: “Sociability is always …
The Killing’s Sofie Grabol on her new £25 million drama, battling cancer, that jumper and dropping the F-bomb on Radio 2. Sofie Grabol – the Danish actress much loved for her portrayal of Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (with jumper) in the Scandi-noir thriller, The Killing – is explaining why she has a conflicted relationship with …
Shirley Williams arrives quite punctually, given that she has a self-acknowledged reputation for tardiness – bright blue eyes shining, lovely smile, brisk but immediately genial – at the restaurant of her choice, which is in the crypt of St John’s Church in Smith Square, Westminster, much favoured by MPs because of its close proximity to the …
Mel and Sue – how their names trip off the tongue mellifluously – have been bosom buddies for coming on three decades. They are the winning court jesters who have cleaved themselves to the affections of the nation, with the rise and rise of Bake Off. It’s a measure of the show’s success that there …
If anyone can make being holed up in the back of a cab for an hour feel glamorous, it’s Kristin Scott Thomas. Not that she would necessarily thank you for the compliment, for neither a simperer nor a gusher is she. Indeed, she is agreeably tough, funny, thoughtful, honest and seemingly unafraid of anything — …