It was written in the stars, perhaps. All signs pointed towards Sir Michael and Clare, Lady Morpurgo ending up together. Their love story began long before either of them was born; before they had met, their ancestors' paths had crossed multiple times.

In the 1780s, James Dunn, an ancestor of Clare’s, saved a man's life. That man was John Wesley, Michael’s ancestor. This is just the first of an almost unbelievable set of connections that have been pulling Michael and Clare towards one another over the years.

The second has to do with publishing. Clare’s father Sir Allen Lane co-founded Penguin Books, which had a lot to do with the encouragement of his mentor, John Lane (who Allen took his surname from — this is a long story). At the beginning of the First World War, Michael’s grandfather Emile Cammaerts was setting-up a relief fund for Belgian orphans that had fled to Britain. To raise money for them, he decided to create a fundraising book. That book was published by John Lane.

The next connection came after the Second World War, when Allen Lane appointed a new history editor at Penguin Books — Jack Morpurgo, Michael’s step-father. And finally, in 1960, Allen Lane was in the dock of the Old Bailey for the Lady Chatterley Trial, accused of publishing an ‘obscene’ book. Clare was there with her mother to watch — as was Francis Cammaerts, Michael’s uncle. A distinguished teacher, Cammaerts was called as a defence witness in the trial and spoke in favour of Lane. Penguin Books won the case.

Clare and Michael finally met in Greece in the summer of 1962. It was ‘Coup de foudre,’ Michael writes in his new book Down Burrow Lane: Life and Love on the Farm, the launch of which will be ticketed and held at Netherwood Estate in Herefordshire on July 24. The book itself is published in September and is, as Michael writes, ‘in truth, mostly the story of Clare’.

He describes her as his ‘Juliet’ upon first meeting. ‘Tongue-tied, I was… Not a word could I utter. I simply gazed at her.’ Clare merrily admits that her first impressions matched up: ‘He was very gorgeous,’ she brags, although in his book Michael seems to remember things differently, recalling that Clare told her sister afterwards: ‘He’s fine, very sweet. Just right for you.’

That they were head over heels for one another, I have no doubt. The pair married aged 19 and 21 and, 63 years later when I meet them on a sunny day at Fulham Palace in London, they appear just as besotted with each other as ever.

I had set out to interview Michael alone — the author of War Horse, Private Peaceful, Kenzuke’s Kingdom and more besides is worthy of a solo slot. But then Clare arrived with him. She is bright and sparkly and doesn’t seem at all her age (84). It is she, I come to realise, who is the biggest part of the Michael Morpurgo story and, I suspect, it is Michael’s relationship with her that has inspired many of his best novels. Indeed, she mentioned he should look into horses in the war, which in part led to the writing of War Horse.

Fifty years ago, the pair started the charity Farms for City Children — a project to help school children who may not otherwise get to experience the countryside. This is the main subject of Down Burrow Lane. ‘The myth is that it is “Michael Morpurgo” who does this, and it is absolutely the opposite,’ Michael says. ‘Clare inspired the whole thing, right from the start — it was important to set the record right.’

Your aesthetic heroes

Michael: My hero is another writer whom I would very much like to model myself as, and that’s Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a lovely man and he had very strong principles. I have a great respect for him — he’s the writer I most want to be.

Clare: It’s not something I think about much, but I have just finished reading Brick Lane, by Monica Ali. I would love to meet her. It's a fantastic story, so I’d choose her. I haven’t got a hero like Michael, or a heroine. Joan of Arc used to be my hero, or heroine, but that answer is a bit antique these days, isn’t it?

Exhibitions that have impressed you

Michael: I remember going to a place in Amsterdam where there were a couple of hundred paintings by Van Gogh. It was interesting, actually, because you see them reproduced and reproduced and reproduced, and then suddenly you're standing in front of them, and it is a different thing to be there and close to them. I'm always fascinated by the lives of these people, particularly people like Van Gogh, who had no recognition whatsoever in their lifetime.

Clare: We went to Thomas Jefferson’s house, Monticello. It wasn't strictly an exhibition, but it was amazing to think about — that all that time ago, he brought so much stuff back from Europe. It was almost like a European house in America. It was very beautiful.

The last things of note that you bought for yourselves

Clare: Last week Michael bought me a hat — it’s a very sweet straw hat that is embroidered all over with daisies.

Michael: That was quite funny, actually, because we saw it in the shop, and she's very against buying new clothes. She thinks they should all be second hand, but she needed one because it was hot. Anyway, we bought it and we came out of the shop. I said: ‘It must be made by some wonderful designer because it’s so lovely, let’s look inside and see who it’s made by.’ And it said ‘Shein’.

Your favourite paintings

Clare: I used to say Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds by Constable, but I wouldn’t say that now. You say what you think, Michael. I’m just thinking.

Michael: I think the painting that has meant most to me is the one Clare’s wearing on her shirt [a Quentin Blake piece celebrating Farms for City Children]. I think he's a great artist. He has managed to capture [in this painting] in about four and a half geese and a child what the whole world is like for us down in Devon. So that’s why it's my favourite painting.

Clare: I tell you what I love, Eric Ravilious. And we knew his son very well too.

Michael: We both share Eric Ravilious, and I have Quentin Blake and she has Constable.

The possessions that you’d never sell

Clare: The silver teapot.

Michael: Ah, yes, the first thing we ever bought together. In Hampstead, when we were living in a £5-a-week flat — if you can believe that? — there was a wonderful silver shop, and this very lovely silver teapot and we had it and used it and used it and used it.

Clare: I’d never sell that.

The books you’ve found inspiring

Clare: Brick Lane, which I mentioned before and Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman.

Michael: I think the book which I have dipped into the most over the years is a wonderful poetry anthology by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney called The Rattle Bag. It has about 500 poems inside and the wonderful thing about it is that you never tire. We keep it in our bathroom. It’s wonderfully familiar and, for me now, I think familiarity is quite important. Clare's very good, she reads new stuff. I tend to like the remembered things, and we knew Ted Hughes quite well — so the book is quite important to us anyway. I think a book that I really treasure has to have some kind of association to do with the people who made it.

Who would play both of you in a film of your lives

Michael: I’d probably like to be Paul Newman. She’s thinking: ‘Yeah, I’d like you to be Paul Newman too!’

Clare: No, I wouldn’t actually. I’d like you to be Gregory Peck. And, how about that lovely lady in the film for me?

Michael: Can I choose one too please? If you’re asking me to choose the love of my life on film, I’d pick Audrey Hepburn. They were in that film together called Roman Holiday.

The music you work to

Michael: Again, I think we now have favourites that we listen to pretty much again and again and again. Of the classical composers, I'm really rather transfixed by Mozart. I like choral music, church music of the 18th and 17th centuries, because that's what I used to sing when I was a young boy, but I also want to mention the Scottish group, The Proclaimers, and The Traveling Wilburys.

Clare: There was a lovely duo that we saw play classic guitar in Petworth. John Williams and Julian Bream. The other person that we love is Joan Baez. We are of our time.

The last podcasts you listened to

Clare: Michael listens to a lot.

Michael: Short History Of…, which I listen to a lot in the night, because there’s always one that I haven’t heard of.

Clare: I listen to the radio when it’s on, and that’s about it.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Clare: The first thing that came into my head was a bathing costume, but I wouldn’t need one, would I? So probably, I’d take a knife.

Michael: To defend yourself or cut through things?

Clare: Everything. It would be very boring not to have a knife.

Michael: You’re so practical. That’s very interesting, because when I was on Desert Island Discs I didn’t know what to take, so I asked my granddaughter and she said a waterslide.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Michael: Um… [after a pointed look from Clare] getting breakfast for my wife. She’s not a great getter-upper.

The hotels you could go back and back to

Michael: When I was young we used to go to a hotel outside Venice, The Cipriani. It was wonderful because you’d wake up and open the window in the morning onto an extraordinary Italian landscape.

Clare: Another hotel is the Grandes Ecoles in Rue Cardinal behind the Panthéon. It has a garden which feels so huge in Paris, and blackbirds, and there are no televisions in the rooms. They are quite small rooms, as is the way in Paris, but they look after you nicely.

The most memorable meals you’ve ever eaten

Michael: Clare cooks a really good mushroom risotto, and I always look forward to that. And for pudding, just at the moment, I really like strawberries and yogurt.

Clare: I think probably a risotto or kedgeree.

The best presents you’ve ever received

Michael: This is the most difficult interview I’ve ever had.

Clare: You quite like surprises.

Michael: I do. Let’s see. I know it sounds strange but I actually think the pair of slippers you gave me one Christmas, which are unbelievably comfortable.

Clare: I am thinking of mine. Are you thinking what mine might be?

Michael: No, I am not going to tell you what you think.

Clare: Go on, think of something that I liked, and that I was surprised by.

Michael: Well, over the years I have given Clare jewellery from a wonderful Jewellery maker who lives in Devon, called Charmian Harris. I think her necklaces are the nicest things I’ve ever given her.

For tickets to the launch of Michael’s new book 'Down Burrow Lane: Life and Love on the Farm', at Netherwood Estate in Herefordshire on July 24, see here. 'Down Burrow Lane: Life and Love on the Farm' will be published in September, and available in all good bookshops. For more information on Farms for City Children, see here.

In 1982, the Guinness World Record for the longest-ever after-dinner speech was broken. It lasted 12-and-a-half hours and it will probably not surprise you that it was delivered by Gyles Brandreth.

Fortunately, when I speak to Gyles over the phone, he is on his way to the ITV studio where he will be filming This Morning. The journey is only 30 minutes long. Otherwise, I fear I would’ve been here all day.

When he is not talking — a rarity — Gyles is listening on his award-winning podcast, Rosebud, where he interviews celebrities about their early memories. ‘To Country Life readers who haven’t yet discovered podcasts, I say to them: get with the programme. There is more to life than Radio 4.’

The podcast, which is ‘totally apolitical’, has so far featured high profile celebrities and politicians, including Sir Ed Davey, Kemi Badenoch (who Gyles is a ‘great fan’ of) and Sir Keir Starmer.

Would he interview Nigel Farage? ‘Yes, certainly,’ Gyles says. ‘I am interested in people. I wouldn’t be voting for him, because I want a credible party with clear long term views and the knee-jerk reaction of Farage doesn't interest me but, as a person — of course.’

Who would he have if he could have any guest, living or dead? He replies that he doesn’t know if I am old enough to be eligible (I am 26 and baby-faced, but certainly out of childhood), but that he’d choose me. I suspect that this is a line, but still feel very flattered until he follows this up with: ‘I don’t mind who we have, seriously.’

Podcast host is the latest job in a long and varied career. ‘I used to be a Member of Parliament, and when I lost my seat in 1997 I wasn’t sure what to do. My wife [Michèle Brown] said: “do whatever you want to do.”’ So he did.

Gyles has been a politician, television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher. As a young MP, ‘I think I aspired, probably, to be Prime Minister,’ he admits. He is still, he says, ‘waiting for the call’ and ‘very much’ a Conservative, as is his daughter Aphra Brandreth, who is the MP for Chester South and Eddisbury.

Now nearly 80 years old, he suggests that he may be trying yet another new role. ‘I am listening to some songs at the moment because of the Edinburgh show I’m doing. My co-performer and I may be singing,’ he says.

‘She’s a friend of mine called Harriet Jaine. She is the producer of my podcast. We did a charity show last year to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital with Joanna Lumley and Jim Broadbent, and I invited Harriet to come on and sing some songs. She was a sensation, so I said: “Will you be in my show?” It’s called Up Memory Lane!.’

Singing doesn’t really seem the most natural fit for Gyles, but given that the PM job looks set to be filled, what choice does he have? And looking back on Gyles’ talent as a career chameleon, I am sure he’ll find his voice, as he always seems to.

Your aesthetic hero

I mean, I’ve got so many answers. I’m going to say Oscar Wilde, because I feel like I’ve known him, personally, all my life. At my boarding school, the founder was a very old man who has been a friend of Wilde’s. So, as a boy I knew a friend of Oscar Wilde’s, and now I’m lucky enough to be a friend of Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland. I’ve written seven murder mystery novels based on Wilde’s life and am president of The Oscar Wilde Society. My favourite line of his is: ‘Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.’

A book you’ve found inspiring

A book of mine that I keep on my bedside table is Dancing by the Light of the Moon. It’s an anthology of poetry, so it’s not really mine. I keep it there because the poems in it are inspiring — and the great thing about poems is that they’re often quite short, so you can get a quick adrenaline rush by reading one. At the end of the book is a poem called ‘Everything is Going to be Alright’, by Derek Mahon. That is the inspiration I need.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

An exhibition of portraits by John Singer Sargent. His portraits are immaculate. The exhibition was at the Tate Britain not that long ago and his paintings were wonderful. I love them. People are often a little bit more elongated than they might have been in real life but, because I’m interested in people and I like people, the Sargent paintings are great. You feel as though you’re meeting some of the most interesting people in the world, because he’s caught them on canvas.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

Almost certainly a yoghurt with granola from Grosvenor House on Park Lane where we record my Rosebud podcast. That’s my go-to treat. I spend almost nothing on things. I mean, I haven’t bought clothes in literally 30 or 40 years, as you can see — look at me! I only wear one pair of shoes — the same every day.

Your favourite painting

There’s a painting in St Petersburg in the Hermitage Museum called ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’, by Rembrandt. It is the only painting that I’ve seen when, on sight, it moved me to tears, which is why I remember it.

The music you work to

I don’t work to music, I work in silence. It’s not possible. I am a male, therefore I can only do one thing at a time, right? I do listen to music, and if I want a lift I listen to the songs of Charles Trenet. I listen to the same songs endlessly. For example, in the kitchen at night, when I'm doing the washing up or clearing up, I could listen to the same song 10 times in a row.

A possession you’d never sell

My problem is: I’m a hoarder. I have a whole room, in the basement of our house, that is my jumper room. The moment I die, my wife has got the skip company on rapid dial. I cannot give away or sell anything. I don’t find it difficult — I find it impossible. I have a wonderful bust of William Shakespeare, given to me by a friend some years ago, and I certainly wouldn’t give that away.

The last podcast you listened to

This is awful. The last podcast I listened to was my own. It’s ridiculous. Every night when I‘m getting ready for bed and cleaning my teeth, I listen for 30 minutes. We do three episodes a week and interestingly, when you’re actually doing it, it just sort of happens to you — and you don’t know what the episodes are really like until you hear them back. Curiously, they often land differently from the way they sound when it’s happening. It’s a different experience listening to them on audio to watching them on YouTube, too.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Well, I think Leonardo DiCaprio is getting a bit old now. Of course, I wouldn’t mind playing myself. But, when I was young, the actors I liked were Terry-Thomas, George Sanders, David Niven. But maybe… I tell you, The Muppet Christmas Carol is a great movie. I wouldn’t mind Kermit playing me.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I’d take yoghurt and granola so I’d have a quality breakfast. I would take the obvious things too: The Complete Works of Shakespeare, the King James Version of the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer — because I love all the language of that, and I might take the Oxford English Dictionary to improve my vocabulary.

The items you collect

I have a collection of teddy bears. We had so many of them that when we got to a thousand, my wife said: ‘Enough,’ so they now live at Newby Hall, near Ripon in North Yorkshire. They have built for us the Brandreth Bear House there — and that’s where our teddy bears live, so I share them with the world. I collect everything. Teddy bears, jumpers, books.

The thing that gets you up each morning

I wake up — that’s what gets me up, and I get going. I’ve never been somebody for lying in bed, really. I’ve spent a lot of my adult life on breakfast television, so I’m used to getting up quite early.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Randolph Hotel in Oxford on Beaumont Street. I was there this week. It’s a Hilton hotel now and it’s wonderful. It's quite old school in many ways, but I love it because I first went there when I was a student at Oxford a long time ago. I then lived there for a while when I ran the Oxford theater festival because the Playhouse theater in Oxford is right next door, They've done it up beautifully and they've given it an Alice in Wonderland theme — which I have had a lifetime obsession with.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

Well, I can’t say yoghurt and granola again. But yes, it is yoghurt and granola from Grosvenor House.

The best present you’ve ever received

Probably my wife, but she wasn’t a gift. She didn’t even come gift wrapped, so I’d say my three children.

For tickets to Gyles' Edinburgh Fringe show, see here. To listen to his podcast, see here

It must be hard to craft a beautiful poem with ‘a million kids running around’ you, but such is the challenge faced by George Mpanga, better known as George the Poet. The 35-year-old father of two is multi-talented. The spoken-word artist, poet (obviously), author and host of Have You Heard George’s Podcast? began his career as a rapper, signing a music deal with Island Records aged 22.

He turned to poetry and podcasting after taking a step back from music. He is currently doing a PhD at UCL about the economic and cultural potential of black music and has just written an exclusive short story for Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, a Belmond Train, as part of Writers on the Rails. Last year he published a book, Track Record: Me, Music and the War on Blackness. He’s done a lot so far, but he started very young.

Born in 1991 in north London to Ugandan parents, his creative ambitions formed at around 11 years old. ‘I remember writing down: “I would like to be an entertainer with influential ideas” — something like that. I thought I was going to be a singer or rapper, and perhaps also a public speaker — poetry wasn't on my radar,’ he says.

It was through rap music that George’s interest in poetry awakened. ‘More specifically UK grime music,’ George explains. ‘From the age of 15 I was a grime rapper… and I just felt like there were layers that I could peel back when it came to the performance. I felt like I didn’t really need the music.’ He adds: ‘Being a rapper is a little bit like being a professional wrestler, there's a lot of bombast involved, and that’s not really me. The more I started to pull away from those elements, the more I was left with what I could only describe as poetry.’

It was while studying politics, psychology and sociology at King’s College, Cambridge, that George’s career really started to take off. ‘I ended up spending more time off campus because there was a growing demand. One moment I’ll never forget was in my final year. I was supposed to be in the exam hall, and I was filming a poetry special for Formula 1 at the Monaco Grand Prix. I had to write it, memorise it, deliver it to camera, fly back to uni and sit the exam in about 36 hours. At that point I realised that this was probably going to be my career,’ he recalls.

George’s EP, The Chicken and the Egg, was released in 2014 to critical acclaim. His first book of poetry, Search Party, was published in 2015 and, in 2018, he was elected as a member of the national council of Arts Council England. He opened the BBC coverage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding with a love poem and was offered an MBE in 2019 that he declined because of the British Empire’s treatment of Uganda, which he termed ‘evil’.

Perhaps his success is in part due to his wife. He has two children with Sandra Mpanga, who is also his manager and events producer. ‘She’s the best person I’ve ever worked with,’ George gushes. ‘The most successful events that I’ve done have been produced by her.’ The pair have known each other since their school days.

Recently they’ve been enjoying seeing the world together. ‘My wife and I got married not long ago, in 2021, and we started travelling quite a bit. It really did ignite this new passion in me, because obviously it’s a mind-expanding experience. You meet new people, you see different things.’ On his work with Belmond, he adds: ‘There's something about the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express journey passing through all of these different landscapes, from the rural to the urban, that I'd actually never really seen before or taken the time to appreciate. It was such a rich opportunity to write for travel.’

Your aesthetic hero

This is a little bit of a wild card that I don’t think people will expect from me, but probably the pop star The Weeknd. He's a master of aesthetics, in my opinion. When he first came out he had a very unique sound, but he also had a mystique around him, and there was this big question in the early years, as he became a superstar, of how he would navigate that — not being mysterious anymore. However, with every album cycle he reinvents his aesthetic. He's got a concept: sometimes he's looking like a mad scientist, other times he's looking like a parody of a Hollywood has-been. He treats his physical appearance like a canvas as much as his music.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

There’s an artist called Phoebe Boswell. I went to an exhibition of hers some time ago. It was just beautiful art and it really played with the idea of the female body a lot. There's a lot of art that is capturing my attention from Uganda as well. I have an artist that I'm obsessed with called Hatimax, and I also did some very, very, very interesting work with a digital art gallery last year called Frameless.

They're based in London, and they create immersive installations out of classical art pieces. That also left a big impact on me. I wrote a piece to a painting by the Victorian-era artist John Atkinson Grimshaw. It was beautiful, I got lost in that.

The last thing that you bought for yourself

I bought myself a watch. For day-to-day, nothing extravagant.

Your favourite painting

To be honest with you, my favourite painting is not known. It's a piece that I had made about my family. It hangs in our living room and I adore it. The artist I mentioned earlier, Hatimax, made it. I gave it to my wife for Valentine’s Day.

A possession you’d never sell

Apart from that painting I just mentioned, I’ve won a fair few trophies — they would never be sold.

A book you’ve found inspiring

I always come back to Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers. It was a very interesting take. The whole thesis of the book is that there are factors that go into success that sometimes are staring you in the face, but they are not necessarily highlighted when you talk about the great successes, like in the computing or sporting industries. There are things that matter — the way you treat people, the way you pour into your children, the way you pay attention to what's going on around you. I've always found that to be a powerful message.

The music that you work to

The last genre of music that I really used to lose myself to was lo-fi hip hop. It is the most relaxing. Literally, I think scientifically, the frequencies that it hits are the frequencies of relaxation, comfort, nostalgia and warmth. So, I recommend it to anyone out there looking to have something on in the background that they can unplug but still feel free and creative to.

The last podcast you listened to

A podcast that keeps me up to date with Uganda, it’s called ON Uganda.

Who would play you in a film of your life

I feel like it has to be Daniel Kaluuya or Damson Idris, if we’re gonna lean into the ‘heart throbby’ vibe of George the Poet.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I would need music, so some kind of speaker, and I’d love to take electricity. Also some seeded bread, because I’m fancy, and peanut butter, because I’m really fancy — and a notepad. My middle-class desert island experience would be complete.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The fact that my kids are screaming. They are one and three. That’s me being a bit tongue in cheek, but literally the knowledge that there is all this life to live with them, and they’re up in the morning and raring to go so, emotionally and practically, that will get you out of bed.

The items you collect

Maybe Air Jordans, but I don’t think of it like collecting. I don’t have a ridiculous number of pairs, but it's definitely more than five.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Waldorf Astoria, it’s just a classic. If you ever get the chance, go to the one in Amsterdam. It’s a work of art, man.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I’ll never forget eating snails in France when I was 10, so that was memorable. I didn’t say good, but literally — I will never forget. I think I just prefer them alive. I see a snail, and I feel no animosity towards it. I'm perfectly happy for it to continue being a snail without being on my plate. I don't think I should have that snail. And they leave a trail of slime behind them.

The best present you’ve ever received

It will definitely be from my wife. She kills it with the presents. One time she literally surprised me with a trip and it was amazing. The details are between us, but yeah, she’s the best.

‘Writers on the Rails’ is a new literary collection of exclusive short stories featuring George the Poet. It was launched as part of Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, a Belmond train. Journeys will be departing from now until October 2026.

If you, like me, were chronically online in the 2010s then you will be familiar with Jim Chapman, or ‘j1mmyb0bba’ as his YouTube channel was then named. Part of the ‘Brit Crew’ — a group of British personalities including Zoe Sugg (Zoella), her brother Joe (ThatcherJoe), Alfie Deyes (PointlessBlog) and Jim’s now ex-wife Tanya Burr — Jim was basically one of the countries best-known influencers, before being an influencer was even a thing.

Born in 1987 and raised in Wilby, Norfolk, as a little boy Jim dreamed of being an illustrator, a hobby he has kept up to this day. He graduated from the University of East Anglia with an undergraduate degree in psychology with a view to studying for a masters (because of a ‘fascination with the way people worked’), until YouTube came knocking. When his work on the platform began to take off, he thought: ‘Oh, this is an opportunity.’ He was earning enough to pay rent to his mum and his mental health was at an all time low, so he decided to quit everything else and focus solely on his channel.

It was a gamble that paid off. Now Jim is an author, illustrator, presenter and model, as well as being an influencer — a term he dislikes being known as. His content, focused on men’s fashion and grooming and family life, now stretches across social media including Instagram, where he has 2.3 million followers. ‘It’s more about betterment than vanity,’ he replies, when I ask about the part of his career that hinges around how he looks. Jim comes across as very grounded. He says doesn’t read his own press, for starters, ‘because here's the thing about my job, the good is never good enough, but the bad really f***ing sucks.’

He goes on: ‘I say this from my ivory tower — I appreciate that — but never have I had enough view traffic, never have I read a thing about me that was good enough. However, if it's in any way negative, I'm like: “Oh, my God, that hurts.”... I just find it better to drop the ego, don't think about it and move on with my life.’

Jim admits that the atmosphere for content creators nowadays is vastly different from when he was coming up on YouTube. ‘Sometimes, people in my world, the ‘influencer’ world, who are young, are the face of what they do, there isn't much they can talk about other than themselves,’ he says. ‘It can be boring, for one thing, but also quite vacuous, and I think sometimes taking a step out of your comfort zone and trying new things broadens your horizons, and then you can have better conversations with people.’

Before his current career Jim had stints working in retail and in insurance. ‘For a while, I was cold calling people trying to sell car insurance. I was the guy who would send the bailiffs after you, for a little while. I'm kind of known as being Mr Nice Guy nowadays, but in that job I was a professional a***hole,' he recalls. Clearly, it wasn’t a good fit for him.

He has two children, Margot and Jesse, with wife Sarah Chapman (née Tarleton) who is a model and influencer, for want of a better word. They are currently renovating their home in the Cotswolds together after having moved out of London in order to be closer to Sarah’s family. ‘Of course, I'm still going back and forth to London quite a lot, so I was concerned that it was going to be hard for me, but actually seeing my family thrive is kind of all I need,’ says Jim, before adding that it was ‘totally worth it’.

Your aesthetic hero

I think, because I’ve been doing this job for a long time, I tend to not have heroes. The more I do it, the more I realise everyone’s just a bloody human being, so no one immediately pops to mind, but I think David Gandy always looks impeccable, and holds himself really well. He’s actually really intelligent too, and has done exceptionally well with his career.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I bought a car that broke down after two and a half days, so I had to return it. I thought I was being smart by buying something that was 10 years old. I thought: ‘I’ll get more car for my money that way.’ Then it broke down on a one-way system in central London. That was unfortunate.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I can’t think of a specific exhibition, but one of my favourite places ever is the Natural History Museum. To this day, it's so magic for me. I went when I was little, and they still have a lot of the stuff that I remember from that time there now. I'm so fascinated by prehistoric stuff and all the biology that came before us. It just blows my mind.

Recently I took my kids and the massive animatronic T Rex is still there — exactly the same. It used to be terrifying. I will say that both of my kids snuggled in a bit tighter when we walked into that room, so I think it still does have that majesty about it.

Your favourite painting

I'm much more into illustrations, because that's a part of what I do. What I tend not to do in the house is have copies of famous artworks, because I want it to be the real thing and, of course, I can't afford the real thing, so I would rather have slightly more unique pieces from artists that are a bit more unknown.

In fact, I can walk around a fine art museum, and very often nothing really sings to me, but I can pick up a copy of, say Spider Man and see loads of drawings that I love. Fine art doesn’t appeal to me in the same way.

A possession that you’d never sell

I can’t think of a single thing. I am really conscious of how nothing means anything by now. It sounds really miserable, but everything can be replaced. For example, if my house burned down, it’s all insured. I could get another house. So there’s not a thing I can think of that means enough to me that I would never get rid of. I had a bunch of watches, but I sold them all when I had the kids. I thought: ‘Actually, I want more money in my pocket now than things on my wrist’. Some of them were sentimental, but the sentiment was not within the item, it was in my mind.

Who would play you in a film of your life

I get told I look like Andrew Garfield sometimes. In fact, I once signed an autograph as Andrew Garfield by accident. I was at the BAFTAs and Hacksaw Ridge had just come out. I was signing autographs and doing selfies, and then this guy said: 'Sign this'. I didn't realise it was the poster of Hacksaw Ridge. He said: ‘I loved you in the film,’ and then suddenly my heart dropped. I looked over and Andrew Garfield was about 6ft behind me, and I'm much taller than Andrew Garfield — I'm 6ft 3in. He’s very cool, very handsome but very much not me. I was on autopilot so I signed a big ‘Jim’ on the poster. It haunts me to this day.

A book that you found really inspiring

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson — it’s fascinating. I tend to read more facts than fiction.

The music that you work to

When I draw I have music on. I listen to basically the same four albums I've listened to since I was about 16. A lot of Radiohead, Bloc Party's first album, James Blake, Billie Eilish, The 1975 — all the really sad ones. Basically, if it hurts, I like it.

The last podcast you listened to

Good question. I actually recorded one the other day, but I don't listen to anything I’ve done. I mean, I don't read my own press or watch back my own content once I've edited it. I'm my own worst critic. I don't need more ‘me’. For me, it's a really important distinction between church and state — who I am is not what I do. So, I just don't like sitting through something I've already done. I don’t need to watch it all again. But also, I just sit and look at myself and go: ‘God, you blink funny,’ or ‘Your voice is annoying,’ or ‘You mumbled there’. You know, no good can come of it. So I just don't.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Something really practical like a pen knife. Assuming I don't get bitten by a snake or die of sun exposure, I think I’d quite enjoy it. I love adventure and it would be so peaceful. Your phone wouldn’t be going ‘ping’ every five minutes. I also quite like being on my own.

The thing that gets you up on the morning

My kids. My son is two and this morning he woke up at 6am. Yesterday he came down in his Elsa dress with his big sunglasses on, so it's a good way to wake up.

Otherwise, what wakes me up, in a more sort of metaphorical sense, is that I love existing. I know it sounds ridiculous and really wishy-washy, but I want to touch it all and smell it all, and I want to make sure that by the time my time on this planet's done I've experienced it. Especially because of being in a really bad place years back — I'm so conscious of how little time I have here right now, and so I want to do stuff.

The items you collect

I am a collector of just… bits. My wife will say: ‘What have you bought now?’ It will be an odd contraption of some sort that I think is going to change my life, that I then never use. I also like Lego because I like to make stuff, and sometimes it’s a nice way to relax: to stay in for an evening, have a glass of whisky and make something that is low energy.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I quite like to not stay in a hotel. I like to experience things and explore. I only really stay in one if it's convenient, for example Soho House is handy as it's in so many cities now, so you kind of know what you're getting.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

This one is a tricky one. I don't know my most memorable meal. I do remember accidentally eating snails. We were in France, and they were fine. We were eating these little deep fried things and then we found out that they were snails. Everyone else went, ‘Bleurgh’, but they tasted good. We didn't know it was a problem until they decided it was.

Otherwise, I think it's more about the location. I’ve been to the jungle a few times, when I was working with WWF. And so when you see slop on a plate, that is really exciting, because you're in the jungle. I eat everything. I can't think of much stuff I wouldn't want to eat. I mean, I wouldn’t want to eat brains... but it's more about the company and the location than the food for me, I think.

The best present you’ve ever received

I got a nice watch once, but even that I sold when we had the kids. It was nice at the time, and I think at that point in my life it meant a lot to me, because at that moment success meant money, and so it was a mark of that.

Before Jesse came along, Margot and my wife had made his little book together. It was called Daddy's Magic Hugs, and we had so many bedtimes when I read that to her, and it's now tattered and knackered.

You can keep up to date with Jim on his social media channels, @JimChapman. You can follow him on Instagram here

Formerly a fashion journalist at Vogue and Tatler, Pip Durell has gone on to build a fashion empire of her own — With Nothing Underneath (WNU), her luxury womenswear brand which was inspired by men’s tailoring.

The idea came to her when she was at Vogue. She was frequently wearing men’s shirts to work, due to a lack of good options for women. ‘People would always be like: “I like your shirt”… and then I decided to make a shirt, and it went from there,’ she recalls, with a cup of tea in hand in her south London office.

The business began when Pip was 27. She will be 35 this year, and it has only gone from strength to strength. Last year, WNU was named by The Sunday Times as one of the top 100 fastest growing private companies in the country. A lot of her success is down to the Meghan Markle effect, Pip thinks. ‘That was crazy. It was when she was in the Royal Family and still very popular in this country… she basically wore three of our shirts in quick succession and I think it pushed the brand on about three years because of the cash flow that she allowed.’

The first time Meghan wore a WNU shirt Pip received 700 orders. ‘I was probably doing 100 orders a year before that.’ Other celebrities followed, including Cara Delevingne, Florence Pugh and The Princess of Wales. ‘As a British brand, to have anyone in the Royal Family validate you on the kind of global scale that they do is unbelievable.’

As a child, Pip’s mother was an estate agent and her father had a catering company. Growing up in the Kent countryside, she was always desperate to escape to the big city. ‘We would go up to London maybe once a year. I think I just always thought it was a lot more exciting than Kent... the irony is, now I live in London, I'm desperate to get back to the countryside.’

Pip was set to attend the University of Bristol to study history of art, before she changed her mind. Instead she did three weeks work experience at the, now defunct, Condé Nast title Easy Living. ‘Then basically, they were like: “We've got a PA role that we think you might be good for. Do you want to interview for it?” So I did that, and got the job.’

After her role as a PA she became a fashion assistant at Tatler. ‘I can't really remember, but basically — and I don't even know if magazines still work the same way, because it's probably illegal — but everyone was on fixed term contracts to make sure that they didn't pay you very much. I'm pretty sure I was being paid £12K a year,’ she recalls. ‘Tatler was a really fun place to work, because it was pretty silly.’ Her next job was as an editorial coordinator, a role which she went on to do for Vogue straight after. ‘That was amazing. That was really high pressure, very stressful — so much learning.’

She left, returning to Tatler when she was offered the role of jewellery editor. ‘Obviously it was such an honour and so amazing to get to become an editor and have freedom and be able to make decisions. But then, to be totally honest with you, there was actually very little creative freedom, and it was all about advertisers… I wasn’t very fulfilled.’

Now WNU has four stores, three in London (Belgravia, Marylebone and Notting Hill) and one in Devon. The brand is also stocked in Liberty and Harrods. Pip lives in Battersea with her husband, who works in risk and security (‘it’s like a proper job’) and their two-year-old daughter, with another child on the way. She’s come a long way from being a teenage PA at Condé Nast.

Your aesthetic hero

I think it’s somewhere between Charlotte Rampling meets Jane Birkin meets Carolyn Bessette.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Oh, so many. I think on the whole I prefer collections of books, when the story is played out over a longer space. I love Nancy Mitford and Jilly Cooper — I love the richness of the storytelling and the character evolution and the descriptions of the countryside and Britishness.

The music that you work to

We're probably more likely to work to an audiobook than music, which sounds quite weird. But I love Westlife. Westlife is probably what I'm going to put on.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The Marie Antoinette one at the V&A Museum. It was amazing — really beautiful. I think the curation was astounding, I liked the colours, the use of storytelling — it was really first class.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I think I would take a Jilly Cooper book.

The last podcast you listened to

I really go through phases. I love How I Grew My Brand by Piper. Fashion People, that’s another good one.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The cry of a toddler.

The items you collect

I guess I collect antiques — but this is where my habit has actually been really well looked after by our stores. Because we have a tiny house, my husband was like: ‘You can't bring any more antiques in here,’ so I collect antique furniture and put it all around our stores.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

A fur coat at a vintage market in Paris.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Bequia Beach Hotel in the Caribbean. It’s a really small island no one’s heard of and we went a few years ago.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

My husband is an incredible cook and when he cooks at home and does something like steak, that has got to be it for me.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Oh God. I don't know. Someone annoying?

The best present you’ve ever received

Whenever we open a new store my husband gives me a gift, and for the Notting Hill store he gave me a framed print of a Slim Aarons picture, which we have up in our house.

Your favourite painting

As a genre I love the Impressionists and I think the Musee d'Orsay has the best collection. If I could own one painting maybe it would be one by a British landscape artist, like a Constable or a Turner. I think it would have to depict an English scene.

A possession you’d never sell

Lots of things.

For more information or to shop With Nothing Underneath, see their website.

‘I’m tired and scared,’ says Sally Phillips, after a day of rehearsals for Relics, the new play she will be performing in at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in London from June 18. ‘It’s my first time on stage in 20 years,’ she elaborates, ‘and I am finding it hard to learn the lines.’

Of course, a seasoned pro like Sally will have no issue when opening night arrives. From playing Bridget Jones’s foul-mouthed journalist pal Shazzer, to Miranda Hart’s irritatingly posh school friend Tilly in Miranda (‘Bear with, bear with’), she’s a beloved face of British acting.

Born in Hong Kong in 1970, it was the sketch comedy TV show Smack the Pony that really catapulted Sally into the spotlight in 1999. Alongside Fiona Allen and Doon Mackichan, the Channel 4 show saw Sally’s silly side, cultivated at the renowned French clown school École Philippe Gaulier, thrive. Roles in Jam & Jerusalem, co-written by Jennifer Saunders, I’m Alan Partridge and Armando Iannucci's satire Veep (where she played the prime minister of Finland, of all people) also put her on the map.

You could argue that the most notable role she’s played was her one-woman show performed while at university, Benadetta, the Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, for which she covered herself in animal blood (she told The Guardian this experience was so foul that the next time she had a period she felt physically sick). But I think more people have probably seen Bridget Jones.

She’s also a passionate advocate for better understanding of, and support for people who have, Down’s Syndrome. Her 2016 documentary A World Without Down’s Syndrome? Explored the ethics of pregnancy screening and was inspired by her son, Olly.

In Ben Ockrent’s new comedy Relics, she plays Liv, the eldest daughter in a family of four siblings who reunite intent on sorting out their deceased mother’s home before a family secret sends everyone spiralling. ‘With the four siblings, each one is behaving as per the birth order,’ Sally explains. ‘So, the eldest is pretty bossy — that’s me, bonjour,’ she says, almost slipping into her Miranda character for a second, ‘the youngest is unspeakably cool and a bit diffident, the second oldest is a bit of a rebel and the final sibling is the peacekeeper/doormat.’

Sally has two younger brothers herself. Like me, she is the eldest daughter. I ask if she thinks she’s an atypical eldest child. ‘I think all eldest children think they’re atypical,’ she says, sagely. ‘I do have a sense of responsibility, definitely and I try not to be bossy, but I probably am,’ she admits.

The one role that has followed her around the most throughout her career has undoubtedly been Shazzer in the much beloved Bridget Jones films, which spanned from 2001-2025. It finally finished last year with Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy. ‘I always make the joke that, in the Bridget Jones films, I was the one who didn’t get to snog Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Chiwetel Ejiofor or Leo Woodall, and so my character spent 30 years swearing in frustration,’ she says. When they wrapped last year she burst into tears, as did Renée Zellweger. ‘Lucky me, that’s all I can say. It could so easily have been someone else.’

Of course, it could have. But with her trademark zany mannerisms and all round sunny cheerfulness, I doubt another actor could have said ‘f**k’ so many times with such persistently loveability. Let's all just cross our fingers that her next role isn’t another where she stars along three of her character’s siblings, that way it may bring with it the many snogs with handsome men she was so denied in Bridget Jones.

Your aesthetic hero

That’s really hard to choose. I love Joanna Hogg, the film director. I love her work. It hits a part of me that other things don’t reach. I think she’s amazing, and also, she dresses really well — but if I was talking about just how people dress then I’d probably say… can I have the flexibility of looking sometimes like Katharine Hepburn and sometimes like Drew Barrymore in ET? [‘And of sometimes looking like ET too?’ I suggest]. Yes, that’s good. Drew Barrymore and ET by day and Katharine Hepburn when I’m trying to pretend to be a grown up. There would be something amazing about actually being ET. Just going: ‘I don't care,’ blanket wrapped around head, sitting in the basket of a Lime Bike, demanding to be cycled across the sky.

The possession that you’d never sell

None of my photo albums. We used to do this thing with the boys called ‘slidey painting’, where I’d get a big sheet of paper in the garden, squeeze paint on to it and the boys would slide up and down over it [she shows me the picture in question]. I also have an amazing one of my son. Jennifer Saunders had said: ‘Have you ever put your baby in a wig? It’s hilarious.’ [She shows me the photo. It is indeed hilarious, a tiny baby with a mass of curly brown hair perched atop his small head]. Renée also gave us a lovely photo of the four of us [Bridget, Jude, Shazzer and Tom] on set for the last film.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I really love going to art galleries, it’s how I chill out. I particularly like going to the National Portrait Gallery. I think I like going there, because in a way it's a bit like what I do, in how an artist melds with the subject to create something else. Recently, I just loved the David Hockney exhibition at the Serpentine. I love the way that he's keeping on discovering, and how his work is really about the process. He’s always asking the question: ‘How do you make people feel?’

A book you found inspiring

This Is Not a Pity Memoir by Abi Morgan. She is a really amazing screenwriter who co-wrote some of the Bridget Jones’s. Her husband had a reaction to some medication that he was on, which they hadn't been warned about, had a seizure of sorts, woke up, and recognised everyone except her. He thought that she had been sent by the government to spy on him, and so she had a year of being in hospital trying to care for this person who thought she was a spy, and getting cancer because of the stress of it all, at the same time as having to parent the kids. It’s clever as she also explores the idea of how the film of your life that’s happening in your head isn’t at all like real life. It’s generous of her to share that.

Your favourite painting

Probably one my kids did. Tom is 14 now, but when he was 10 he had to leave school for various reasons — he’s neurodiverse. It was a very tricky year for him, and he spent the whole year painting our four dogs. They were pretty good paintings. I also collect postcards when I go to exhibitions and I use them to create characters, and put them on a board in my dressing room. I have a Martin Parr one of a boy and a girl both with Mr Whippy’s. They’ve got it on their noses and the girl’s dress is blowing in the wind.

The music that you work to

I don't actually work to music, but I like a dance break, and then I like silly music, things like Manu Chao. My cousin was in a band which split up years ago called Pete and the Pirates, they have some good sort of silly pop things too.

The last podcast you listened to

Now, this I have a funny answer for. Because of the play, I listened to a podcast called Tree Lady Talks — an entire episode that was about a tree protection officer.

The last thing of note you bought for yourself

Probably a print of a Peter Doig painting called Imaginary Boys.

Who would play you in a film of your life

I mean, obviously it depends if it's a good film or a bad film. I love Jessie Buckley, like everyone on earth does. She's just got a light energy, and she's amazing. She was my favourite actress even before Hamnet. If it was a bit of a low-budget film, and by this I mean a made-for-TV thing, playing young me I could do a lot worse than Charly Clive, who’s recently been in Rooster. She’s extremely cool and really funny. I also love Elf Lyons. She’s too tall to play me, but she’s properly out there. Like a cross between a pixie and a giraffe who’s very funny and very likable.

What you’d take to a desert island

A pop-up spa and a speed boat.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The dogs and fear, a bit at the moment. I’m scared of journalists and theatre reviewers. I’m not really scared of the public, they’re really nice. With the reviewers, it’s not the same. It’s often about them, you know? It used to be the fact that you could console yourself with the fact that it was just fish and chip paper, but now everything exists forever, so your bad review will be there for your great-grandchildren to find.

The items you collect

Moomin mugs. I love them. Also, I think, if you're under house arrest with children, as it were, they depict family scenes, so I noticed myself having quiet commentary on who's being what at the moment. For example, if someone's having a tantrum, I might give them a Little My mug where she’s [here she mimes having a tantrum]. They don’t even notice.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I do go back to the Hotel Kung Carl in Stockholm a lot and they have sponsored a friend and I who are writing a film — they let us stay there for super cheap. They also sponsored the first Down’s Syndrome arts and culture festival in Stockholm, so they’ve been really great. If I can have two I would also have the Casa Monti Hotel in Rome, because I used to live in the city. It was not a dive exactly, but not glamorous. I accidentally lived in a brothel. It was a building that had various flats and there were rooms which were used by prostitutes. There were these madams on the door all day and all night, so it felt very safe, because I was working in a bar late at night, and when I’d come home at 3am they'd be guarding the door. If anyone was looking for sex or anything, they could get it elsewhere — they weren't going to bother me. This area now is a really shi-shi artist area where this super deluxe hotel is. I would like to go there and relive my youth.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

My partner had a, I won't say midlife crisis, but he went and trained at Leiths as a chef. He didn’t become a chef, but he has just won a medal in the World Marmalade Awards. Anyway, we did a couple of supper clubs, which never made any money whatsoever, but the first one of those we called ‘Fond of Mushrooms’. We held it near the Cricket Pavilion at Kew Gardens which is where the Fungarium is. Lee, from the Fungarium, came and gave a lecture and a mushroom band, called The Fun Guys came and one member of the band's dad was actually the mushroom warlock of Glastonbury. Inadvertently, we also recreated the feeling of taking hallucinogenic mushrooms and Ronni Ancona and I did mushroom readings and mushroom-based jokes. There was also a five-course mushroom menu. It was absolutely insane and so much fun.

The best present you’ve ever received

Can I do top three? My friend gave me a surprise night out at Secret Cinema at my lowest ebb to see Moulin Rouge with 10 of my closest friends. My partner had a painting made of us walking the dogs, but at number one, it has to be when my youngest son made me a Monopoly board by hand. It must have taken him weeks and weeks.

Relics runs at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre from June 18 to July 18. For tickets see the theatre's website. Sally will also feature in The Hairdresser Mysteries which will air on BBC One soon.

Lady Anne Glenconner has lore like no one else I’ve known. She is like Jilly Cooper on steroids and with a royal connection. Is it possible to have lived a more colourful, fascinating life? Perhaps. But to talk about it with as much vim and mischief as Lady Glenconner does aged 93? Impossible. She’s mad as a box of (extremely well-heeled) frogs.

Born in 1932, the daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester served as a maid of honour at the coronation of Elizabeth II and was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret from 1971 until her death in 2002. She was married to Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner (who, incidentally, took her to a brothel on their honeymoon in Paris — see what I mean about Jilly Cooper?) and her 2019 memoir Lady in Waiting was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller.

Born Anne Veronica Coke, she was the eldest of three girls. Their father was equerry to George VI and a soldier in the Scots guard, which meant that the young children went wherever he was posted. She was nearly seven when the Second World War broke out and her parents moved to Egypt. Her father was fighting and her mother worked for the Red Cross. The children went to live with their great aunt, after which they moved to Holkham Hall in Norfolk. She remembers it fondly and, in true ‘Lady Anne Glenconner’ style, with a bizarre twist that is a publicist's worst nightmare: ‘We had great fun. Always climbing trees. My sister and I had a pony and there was a prisoner-of-war camp in the park. We had Italian prisoners, first of all, and then German prisoners who weren't so friendly and nice. The Italian prisoners were lovely.’

The young Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret were often visitors, as Sandringham was nearby. ‘We saw them a lot, because when we were small like that, Queen Mary was a great friend of my grandmother,’ she says. Of herself and Margaret, she admits ‘we were quite naughty then. Elizabeth always had an eye out for us’.

At the age of 18, Tatler named her ‘debutante of the year’. She had an engagement to Johnnie Althorp (the future father of Diana, the Princess of Wales), but it was broken off. Being a lady-in-waiting came after Lady Anne had children with Lord Glenconner, three boys and two girls. ‘I knew [Princess Margaret], I was always a friend. We got on terribly well and I found her quite easy to, sort of, manage,’ she recalls of that time.

Lord Glenconner, who died in 2010, ‘was wonderful, magical, clever — everything like that, but he had a flip side, which I have written about. His temper was very difficult,’ Lady Anne says. She was a sufferer of domestic abuse. Living in Mustique, their privately owned island in the Caribbean, with him was ‘fantastic,’ nonetheless. ‘We had it for 12 years on our own. No electric light, no water, nothing.’ Her life has been marked by extreme highs and extreme lows. She has lost two of her sons, Charles and Henry, to illnesses, but says that letters from fans who have also lost their children make her feel ‘very humble’.

Her latest book Manners & Mischief has done well. Her publishers want her to write another book, she says, ‘but I don’t know if I can. I will be 94 at my next birthday’. She still attends plenty of events and gives talks — and clearly loves it. ‘My fans are wonderful. I’m a gay icon in America. I have a lot of young male fans there,’ she boasts. She also spends time bird watching, on the beach and in the local park, particularly after recovering from a rather nasty broken back. She enjoys ‘all those things that I didn't really have time for’ before.

‘Colin and Princess Margaret, although they were wonderful to write about, they needed my attention. I spent my whole time looking after them in some respects and now, sadly, they've both gone, but I can think about myself for the first time, really. And, I’m really enjoying myself.’

Your aesthetic hero

Well, being brought up in a war, [Sir Winston] Churchill was the person I most admired as a child. He was wonderful. All the talks he gave to people, how he encouraged people and how he won the war. So I think, for me at my age, Churchill.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Tutankhamun. I went with Princess Margaret to Egypt, and we saw an exhibition about him. And the other thing was seeing the Terracotta Warriors from China. I thought that was great, too.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I don't buy very much. I hate shopping. What helps me with my writing, however — because I didn't keep diaries, really — is that I took a great many photographs. I've got 100 photograph books, and I had them made in Italy. They're absolutely lovely, with lovely end papers and beautiful leather. So often I buy one of those. They’re terribly heavy and I'm not quite as strong as I used to be. I do find that a slight problem.

Your favourite painting

My great-great-great-grandfather [Thomas William Coke] painted by Batoni when he went on the Grand Tour to Italy. I really love seeing that picture.

A possession you’d never sell

My coronation dress and my coronation brooch. The night before the coronation, one of the Queen’s pages arrived where I was staying in a flat. He brought over a lovely little red box, and inside was a diamond brooch and a note, in the Queen's own handwriting, saying: ‘I hope you will wear this tomorrow’. Of course, I did.

A book you found inspiring

I love books. One I really did enjoy very much was Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies. I thought she wrote beautifully. But it is so difficult to choose just one book. I mean, it’s an impossible question.

The music you work to

I like classical music, and if I’m not working I love listening to opera.

The last podcast you listened to

I don't look at podcasts! Perhaps I’m missing out?

Who would play you in a film of your life

I gave a talk the other day and somebody asked that question. I couldn’t help laughing. I thought it was so funny. The girl that played me in The Crown was rather good — Nancy Carroll.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

A book about how to build a boat.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I am a morning person. I wake up, get up and always want to see what the day is like.

The items you collect

I used to collect things. I had a big sale the other day, I gave up my flat in London as I wanted to raise some money for my youngest son who had a motorbike accident. He’s quite badly disabled. I used to collect a type of china made in Scotland, but I have sold quite a bit. I also used to collect green glass.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Portobello Hotel in London, now that I no longer have a flat there. It’s an absolute joy. If I had a grand choice I suppose I would say The Ritz, because when I had my second born son he was huge (11lbs) and I could hardly move. I was absolutely depressed so Colin said: ‘Stay at The Ritz until Henry is born.’ Unfortunately we only had three days, but they were the most luxurious wonderful days. Also, it has the best dining room in London. Margaret used to like going there too.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

One or two on Mustique were wonderful. Colin was great at parties. We used to have wonderful dinners outside along the beach, it was all beautifully done. It didn’t really matter what we had to eat too much, the setting was so lovely. We had West Indian food. Chicken and coconut soup and mangoes or passion fruit made into soufflés — that sort of thing.

The best present you’ve ever received

The brooch the Queen gave me. Or a beautiful tiara, with eight stars, that Colin gave me for a state visit dinner at Buckingham palace, because I didn’t have one. That was the most marvellous present I had.

Lady Glenconner’s book ‘Manners & Mischief' is available in all good bookshops.

Dame Prue Leith is talking to me about ‘bitches’. She is talking about female dogs, of course, but it still cracks me up. It is funny, I think, because she is old. This is by her own definition; her new book, Being Old and Learning to Love it, was published in Prue’s 86th year and instantly became a Sunday Times bestseller. ‘I'm so sick of people banging on about how terrible it is to be old. There are lots of old people having a really good time, and I’m certainly one of them,’ she tells me, taking a sip of her coffee, chomping down on a shortbread biscuit and looking entirely at home in the swanky room we are meeting in at The Chesterfield Mayfair.

It is her no-nonsense approach and trademark quick wit that made the South African and British chef a star in 2017 when, aged 77, she joined The Great British Bake Off as a judge alongside Paul Hollywood. Before accepting the job, she rang up her predecessor and friend Mary Berry for advice on working with the most steely-eyed of bakers. ‘She said, “Paul absolutely knows what he’s all about, and his judgment is always spot on… the only problem we’re going to have is that you’re not really necessary. Paul could do the whole thing on his own — so just make sure you get your word in”.’ She certainly did.

Her husband (who introduces himself as Prue’s bag carrier) is her biggest fan. He is also her personal stylist — she is married to the retired clothes designer and businessman John Playfair. When I first meet John he takes a card for their show, Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen, from his breast pocket, beaming. He seems to be absolutely infatuated with her, as we all are.

National Treasure status, however, has not made Prue a shrinking violet. She's been very outspoken throughout her career. In particular, Prue has been an advocate for assisted dying. An opinion not shared by her son, the Reform MP Danny Kruger. ‘Neither of us find it a problem. I mean, we disagree about quite a lot of things. He’s very Christian, and I am an atheist, so that’s a big difference,’ she explains.

The key to her youthfulness, I think, is how much she continues to do. ‘I love being busy. I love doing different things. I love doing things I’ve never done before,’ Prue says. Case in point, Prue made her singing debut on The Masked Singer last year, she will be speaking at Wasing Estate’s Well Read festival next month and is continuing to film Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen with John.

The guest on the show that has surprised her the most so far has been the American actress Blake Lively. The unlikely friends met when Prue was filming The Great American Baking Show and Blakes’s husband, Ryan Reynolds, was filming Deadpool. ‘I had said to her, if you’re ever in the Cotswolds, come. I’d love you to be on Cotswold Kitchen. Blow me down, six months later she rings up and says: “Guess what? I’m in the Cotswolds and I’ve got tomorrow free. I can come if you like”.’

Despite being a very young kind of ‘old’, Prue admits that in between hobnobbing with Hollywood stars and countless new projects she does ‘love a sleep in the afternoon’. With any job she takes, a one-hour ‘nap break’ (booked in after lunch) is pre-agreed. ‘It’s one of the great privileges of old age,’ she says.

Your aesthetic hero

It has to be my husband, because he’s been so inspiring. I always liked colour, but I wasn’t as brave as I am now, but he always will push me. I often say, ‘Is this too much?’ and he will say, ‘It’s not enough — bigger earrings!’ Also, I hate shopping, and he loves it, so he buys all my clothes — so he’s definitely my hero.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Recently, we went to the opening of the Lucian Freud exhibition at the London Portrait Gallery, and it’s amazing. I mean, if you think about it, most of us have an image of Lucian Freud’s work, and it’s generally the rather horrific pictures of naked old ladies in my head. I had the idea that he was more interested in ugly than beautiful. Actually, the drawing is just so exquisite, and masses and masses of his drawings and pictures are not of naked old ladies. They're just so characterful and wonderful, I love that.

A book you’ve found inspiring

I have found lots of books very inspiring over my life, but I'm very keen on Shakespeare, because my mother was a Shakespearean actress. The only play I know pretty well backwards is Hamlet, because I was in it when I was about 12. So the book that recently inspired me was written by the actress Dame Harriet Walter. It is called She Speaks and it is brilliant. It’s all about Shakespeare’s women.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I just bought myself a new kitten. This is in response to John who, for my birthday, gave me a Maine coon kitten who I absolutely adore. She’s called Sophie, short for Sophisticat, but she's really lonely. She tries to get the old dogs (we've got two old cavalier spaniels — bitches) but they're really old, and they just think she's such a pain in the neck. She wants to play all the time and they don't want her to play so she needs a companion, so I’ve just bought her half brother. He will be called Aristocat. I’ve always had the most contentious names for my cats.

The music that you work to

I am so non-musical. I mean, I enjoy music, but it never occurs to me to turn anything on. I have never worked with any noise at all. I got myself talked into going on The Masked Singer recently. It came about because when they rang me up and said, ‘We want you to do this,’ I said, ‘Don't be silly. I can't sing a note, I’m tone deaf and I never listen to music.’ They said, ‘Well, we can teach you.’ So I agreed, and then I discovered that their budget for teaching non-singers to sing was never going to get anywhere near me, so I ended up having to hire a private voice coach, and you know what, it worked. I mean, I don't say I was in tune, but at least I could belt it out.

The last podcast you listened to

Well, I don't listen to podcasts very much, mostly because I am very busy. I used to be really addicted to The Rest is Politics, and I still do listen occasionally. I know it's the top rating, but it is for a good reason. I mean, those two are so good, both excellent, and they don't agree with each other all the time, which is lovely.

Your favourite painting

The Royal Academy held a David Hockney exhibition a few years ago, and it was all those East Yorkshire landscapes, which I love. So any one of them. But, the one I particularly remember is The Road Across the Wolds. It’s almost like a children's illustration. Lovely little squares of fields of beautiful colours. I love David Hockney because he draws so beautifully, but they're really accessible. What's not to like?

A possession that you’d never sell

It's a funny thing to say this, because it's so unlike me, but I have one really beautiful gold necklace, which I never wear, because I just wear brightly coloured necklaces. Once in a blue moon I wear it. I bought it in a jewellery shop with a girlfriend just after my first husband died. I was really so miserable, and she said, ‘Come on, we need to do something to cheer you up. I've got a plan.’ So, we went to a gallery where they were giving away free Champagne and vodka jellies. I won't say we were rolling drunk, but we were definitely tight, and whereupon she said, ‘Let's go and look at the jeweler.’ I ended up buying this really beautiful necklace. It is the thing I'd never part with, because, in a way, it was symbolic. It was the first time when I was so unhappy that I was laughing and doing irresponsible things like buying a necklace I couldn't afford.

What you’d take to a desert island

I think I would take the complete works of Shakespeare, because I haven't read them all, and it takes time to read them, because the language is quite old fashioned to us. It bears studying, and I never had time to do that.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Well, if I don't have anything else to do, I do wake up thinking: ‘What shall I cook?’ I cook for pleasure and for relaxation, if I'm happy and if I'm unhappy. There's not a day that goes by that I don't cook something. I tend to get up quite enthusiastically anyway, because there's usually 100 things I want to do. And, of course, I'm bossy and organised. If there's nothing much to do, I will have a go at the garage or sort out something people need sorting. Classic sorter.

The items you collect

I suppose necklaces. I have a necklace wall in my bedroom. John designed it. They’re trees made of metal, about 5ft high and 4ft across.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Phoebe Waller-Bridge, definitely. She has a bit of Fleabag-ness about her. I always see her as that sort of slightly anarchic, chaotic, not quite together character. I'd be very happy if she could play me.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Hotel Chelsea in New York, because it's got a lovely bohemian air, and it’s rather like belonging to the Chelsea Arts Club here — not a hotel — but it's got a rather old-fashioned bohemian atmosphere full of old people thinking too much.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I once went to El Bulli, which was a Spanish Costa Blanca restaurant overlooking the sea. It was really famous because the chef, who was a guy called Ferran Adrià, was in the forefront of the nouvelle cuisine movement. He was into making these tiny little mouthfuls of food, which is not really the way I like to eat at all, but because I'm interested in food, and I was a restaurateur at the time, and he was the restaurant that every restaurateur wanted to go to, I went.

I had realised that if I went with my then husband, he would absolutely hate it, because it would be one of those restaurants where the waiters keep coming along with another little tiny mouthful and telling you where it came from and who grew the raspberries and what kind of beef it was. It's too much information, and you can't have a proper conversation. The trick was to take my daughter, who's very interested in food, and our head chef. So that was the party, and so we were perfectly happy having foodie talk the whole way through. There were something like 40 little mouthfuls, and every one of them was in some way astonishing and amazing, either because it fizzed in your mouth, or the combination was so extraordinary. He was into making sure that you got the maximum sensory explosion. It was once in a lifetime.

The best present you’ve ever received

I had been badgering my parents since I was six for a pony, and obviously was never going to get one one. I used to be sent off to stay on a farm, mainly to learn Afrikaans, because the farming community were often Afrikaners. I went because I wanted to ride, not because I wanted to learn Afrikaans. There was a pony there that had an accident and had learned to favour one foot, still completely ridable, but it made the pony unsellable, so they gave my parents this horse. I said, ‘You can't refuse because it costs nothing.’ Of course, it doesn't cost nothing, once you've got a horse, you've got to buy a saddle and bridle etc. But that was the best present. He was called Laddie and I had him until I went to university.

Prue and Lotte met for coffee and biscuits at The Chesterfield Mayfair. For more information and to book a stay see here. Prue will be speaking at the Well Read festival at Wasing Estate next month. For more information and tickets see here.

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Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is very worried about my tomatoes. They are one of his 12 food heroes in his newest cook book, the Sunday Times bestseller High Fibre Heroes, but I am recklessly squandering my seedling’s chances of success. As a long time eater, but first time grower, I naively chucked two packers of seeds into a window box and left them to get on with it. More fool me.

‘Have you got them outdoors?’ Hugh probes. ‘Do you have a greenhouse?’. I answer no. He begins to panic. ‘WHERE ARE the tomatoes?’ Hugh implores anxiously. ‘How many plants have you got in there? Are they all the same variety? If not, did you label them? How long have they been in there?’ My answers (outside but coming inside, way too many, no, no, two weeks from seed) do not satisfy Hugh. ‘My greenhouse is right by my garden office,’ he says, lifting me up (we are Facetiming) and helpfully walking me over to show me the ropes.

The greenhouse in question is in the Devon countryside where Hugh has been for 17 years. Born in London in 1965 and raised in Gloucestershire, the celebrity chef and food writer is best known for the Channel 4 series River Cottage, which he named after his home.

Hugh’s cooking career began at a young age, helping out at his mother’s dinner parties in the 1970s by making the desserts. The path to greatness never did run smooth, however. Hugh was sacked from an early cooking job at the River Cafe after a few short months. ‘Even though I think I was sort of fairly in tune with the ethos at the place, it was fair to say that at the time I lacked the discipline and professionalism of a trained chef,’ he admits. After that, his path was unclear. ‘I thought: “Well, if you've just been fired from the most relaxed restaurant kitchen in London, do you really want to go and work in some dungeon for some crazed chef trying to get their third Michelin star?’ Hugh decided on a career writing about food instead.

He was a restaurant critic for Punch magazine and the Independent on Sunday. TV work and plenty of books followed. Now, Hugh runs a cookery school at River Cottage at Park Farm, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. He lives with his wife Marie Derome, with whom he shares four children.

His latest book celebrates all things vegetable. ‘I think it's probably the case with quite a lot of young cooks that the meat and the fish are very exciting, but they're also quite tyrannical ingredients, because they hog a lot of attention,’ he says. ‘If we give the same kind of attention to vegetables in a really thoughtful way, they can be so incredibly rewarding and delicious.’ However, Hugh is an omnivore — and an adventurous one at that.

‘The weirdest thing that people think I've ever eaten is probably a placenta,’ he says. For a TV show, he attended an alternative christening where he made the mother’s placenta into a pâté with sage, onion, red wine and a splash of port for the guests. ‘It was really tasty,’ he says, though admits it’s not a chance readily available to many, unless you’ve given birth. ‘You’ve got my number. I can give you a recipe,’ Hugh reassures me. I reply that if I do have children and the desire to eat my own placenta also arises, he will be the first to know.

Has he eaten any other weird or wonderful things? ‘I’ve eaten quite a lot of things that are not mainstream but I haven’t eaten wood or, you know, a car, or something that people online seem to be able to work their way through for a challenge, or whatever. I think there’s a guy who’s eating a small airplane — I don’t think that’s good at all. But I mean nettles, [grey] squirrels and the occasional placenta? I’m relaxed about that.’

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I went to the Francis Bacon exhibition at the National Gallery a year or so ago and I thought that was incredible.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I bought a heel for one of these shoes. I went to Timpson's in Honiton, and they put two new heels on and basically resurrected my garden boots, which I thought were probably a goner, and now they've got a whole new lease of life. I wouldn't say they're as good as new, but they're as good as new for gardening.

A possession that you’d never sell

I mean, I've got lots of possessions that I would never sell, but I suppose I would choose a very beloved hand-forged kitchen knife that was made by a brilliant West Country blacksmith called Alex Pole at The Forge. I use it every day.

Your favourite painting

My mum and dad have a few prints by an artist called Patrick Caulfield. They are very simple household scenes in bold primary colours and they're just, sort of, witty and intriguing. Every time I go to my mum and dad's house, I enjoy looking at these Patrick Caulfield prints.

A book you’ve found inspiring

From a food point of view, probably the most inspiring book I've read is Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, which I started cooking from when I was a teenager, so I've cooked my way through that. On the fiction side, I've just read a brilliant book called Reunion by a writer called Fred Uhlman. I'd recommend it to anyone. It's an extraordinary story about a friendship between two boys just before the Second World War. It's incredibly touching.

The music that you work to

On the whole, I don't work to music, but I do like to have music playing when I'm cooking in the evening and I'm usually very happy to let any younger members of the family choose the playlist. And as a result of that, I've discovered some tunes that I wouldn't otherwise have come across, and now I might even go looking for them myself. Recent favourites that I've discovered through my kids include California by Delta Spirit, Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap, Space Song by Beach House and Losing My Edge by LCD Soundsystem — because I love it and it amuses me at my time of life to think about the lyrics in the context of the world of food.

The last podcast you listened to

I'm a bit old school, and I tend to listen to the radio in real time. So, the other thing I do when I'm cooking is I listen to the Radio 4 comedy thing, particularly the Monday one at 6:30pm, and if it's not my bag then I will listen to music, as discussed. But I did listen to a podcast about Russia, Putin and the apartment block bombers. That’s another BBC one — it’s brilliantly done.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Maybe Steve Coogan or Eddie Redmayne?

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I would take a mask and snorkel — and some other bits of fishing kit as well. Also, I’d like to take one bulb of garlic.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

A cold shower. That’s my coffee. That’s my jolt.

The items you collect

I collect unnecessary amounts of fishing tackle because I always think there might be something I can buy that will help me catch more or bigger fish. It's a sucker's market. I walk into a fishing tackle shop and it's full of things that I really don't need, but somehow want.

Your aesthetic hero

I'm going to say Ben Stokes, because I've really been enjoying watching the cricket for the last few years, and I love the sort of soap opera that is the England cricket team.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Bull Inn, in Totnes, which is a really lovely organic pub with rooms run by my friend Geetie Singh-Watson.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

My mum’s shepherd pie.

The best present you’ve ever received

My attitude about receiving gifts has changed. When I was a kid, the thing I most dreaded getting for Christmas or a birthday was books and socks. I’d think that if anyone gave me a book or a sock, it was just a loss. I'd probably never read the book, and what could be more boring than socks? And now the things I most like to be gifted, and luckily, my family knows this, are really nice socks and books that I actually do want to read.

High Fibre Heroes by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is out now.

Cariad Lloyd’s father died when she was 15. He was a victim of pancreatic cancer at 44. Grief has overshadowed both her life and work, but curiously, Cariad’s career was founded in comedy. ‘Definitely experiencing grief at a young age, I think I hid a lot in comedy. It's a nice place to be when everything's very sad,’ she says.

Grief and humour, you’d think, aren’t natural bedfellows, but Cariad’s career has revolved around loss as much as it has around laughter. She is quite literally dead funny. Many know her for playing Megan, who had an affair with Robert Webb’s hapless Jez in the comedy hit Peep Show. Others know her for appearing on Qi, Have I Got News For You and a slew of other comedy panel shows. Her improv show Austentatious was a turning point in her career. In the show, Cariad acts out a made-up Jane Austen novel with a cast that includes fellow comic Rachel Parris. Austentatious has sold out at Edinburgh Fringe Festival five times and is now playing on Mondays at the Vaudeville Theatre in London throughout 2026, as well as touring. One such invented Austen novel was titled North Banged Her Madly by Cariad, to give you a flavour of the show.

Cariad’s award-winning podcast, Griefcast, is the other side of the coin of her career. Created in 2016, it sees her speak to famous guests about their experiences of death. Though it is currently on a hiatus, Cariad's book based on the series, You Are Not Alone, was published in 2023. She has also recently published a children's book about grief called Where Did She Go?, though admits she has found it difficult to discuss with her own children (aged six and nine) who she shares with her filmmaker husband Ben Blaine.

‘Their understanding develops as they grow, so they might come back to you [to discuss it more and more]. For example, my six-year-old son was on the toilet, and he said: “It's sad that grandpa died.” I said: “Yeah, it's really sad, isn't it? Let me know when you finish.”’

Cariad also hosts a podcast with fellow comedian Sara Pascoe, who she met as a student while studying English Literature at the University of Sussex. Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club sees the pair discuss a new book each week, and is the reason Cariad is now on the judging panel for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. ‘The year before, for the podcast, I'd read over 50 books in a year. This year, with the prize and the podcast, I've read 90 books in a year.’

The Women’s Prize, Cariad says, is more crucial than ever. ‘I think with the news lately, we know that we don't live in equal times. We absolutely don't have any kind of sense that the work is done,’ she says. ‘There's lots of statistics, if you look at people's reading habits — women read men and women, but men mainly read men. The shops know that, the publishers know that — so I think it's so important that we keep shouting about women's writing.’

Our conversation turns to young men and their reading habits. My boyfriend is obsessed with George Orwell, I tell Cariad. ‘He would definitely be a red flag these days,’ she says (about Orwell). ‘You should tell him to read Wifedom by Anna Funder [the story of the author’s much mistreated wife]. If he likes George Orwell, that’s a sobering read.’ She would know. She’s 90 books deep this year, and has a more sobering career than most.

Your aesthetic hero

Is it okay if I say the Moomins? That’s my vibe. What I would like people to get from me is a Moomin vibe.

A possession you’d never sell

I've got a drawing that my daughter did of some flowers, which is really good. I would never sell that.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. It is so good, and the audiobook is read by Meryl Streep. I read it and then listened to the audiobook because I needed to hear Meryl, and I just found the writing, the characters, the pace — everything — just made it one of the most satisfying, inspiring reads.

The music that you work to

I have ADHD so I listen to binaural beats — that’s how I’ve written any books. It’s a special frequency of sound. Without that, I don't do f***ing anything, I'm just so distracted.

Your favourite painting

I’m more into photographers than paintings, so I’ll actually probably say Francesca Woodman, who is a female photographer. They had an exhibition of her work at the National Portrait Gallery, and there’s one series called ‘Polka dots’. For it, she took pictures of herself and it's really interesting. She was way ahead of her time. They would have been so perfect for Instagram but because she didn't have Instagram they're much more thought through and arty.

The last podcast you listened to

Good Hang with Amy Poehler. You feel like you've eavesdropped on a conversation between really great friends. It is genuinely a good hang, and her guests are so good. The Gwyenth Paltrow episode was great.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

If my husband [who is a filmmaker] was casting it I’d be annoyed if he didn’t cast me to play me — come on, it’s a job. I’d do a self tape. If not me… the problem is, I don’t even know any bloody actors anymore. Am I allowed to say someone old and dead? The only person I can think of to play me is Vivien Leigh, which is outrageous, because she's way more beautiful than me, but I’ve always felt like we have a kindred spirit.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I would take my laptop to write or I would take a lot of books or a Kindle, because as long as I could write or read or do something I would be fine. It's just sitting still doing nothing that is the problem.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Recently? The Lee Miller one at Tate Britain. I'm a massive Lee Miller fan, and have been for years and years and years, and it's been kind of weird — when I first discovered her, no one had heard of her. Now she just keeps getting bigger and bigger, which is lovely, because you get exhibitions full of stuff that before you couldn't get access to. This exhibition was amazing. It was so well curated and it was so popular. It was nice to see so many people understand the impact she had as a war photographer as someone who was reporting for Vogue. That's mad. That's wild.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

My children, because I have no option. My son comes down at 6am each morning. I would happily stay in bed until 11am pre-kids, but no. My children come down and say: ‘Where’s my cereal?’

The items you collect

Books and Moomin paraphernalia.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Charlotte Street Hotel — they do nice book events.

Most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

At The Sportsman in Kent. I had one of the best puddings of my life there, it tasted of autumn and bonfires.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

Probably the new flavor of Tony's Chocolonely. I'm obsessed with their chocolate.

The best present you’ve ever received

Sara Pascoe bought me a Moomin jumper. It’s one I had eyed up for ages but that was too expensive.

Cariad is on the judging panel for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The winner will be revealed on June 11 at the charity’s annual summer party in Bedford Square Gardens, London. For more information visit their website.

Marcus Wareing is gearing up to start filming the newest series of MasterChef: The Professionals. It has been ‘a bit hectic,’ he admits. He tells me that he only sees co-host Monica Galetti every nine months, when they film. Presumably this is because they are both so busy with work.

That hasn’t stopped him from preparing for this interview, however. ‘I’ve gone through your [set] questions and I’ve written them down,’ he says, ever prepared. ‘They’re actually really interesting questions to dig deep into… it’s not really questions I thought your magazine would be asking… normally I flick through. I just love the imagery of it,’ he says, either not realising, or simply not caring, that this is basically the equivalent of me admitting to coming to one of his restaurants to take a photo of the food and not eat any.

Marcus was born in Southport, Lancashire, in 1970. The 55-year-old was the son of a fruit and potato merchant, which sparked his interest in food. He started his culinary career at the Savoy Hotel under Anton Edelmann, before going on to join Albert Roux at the Michelin starred restaurant Le Gavroche. Here he first met Gordon Ramsey, who he later went on to work with at Aubergine and on other cookery projects. The pair were inseparable (Ramsay was Marcus’s best man) until a much-documented feud that lasted for many years, to the delight of tabloid journalists in the British media (in 2008 he called Ramsay a ‘sad bastard’ who he ‘still adores’ in Waitrose Food Illustrated magazine, of all places).

Marcus earned his first Michelin star at the age of 25. Great British Menu followed, then came MasterChef and a slew of cookbooks alongside other television appearances. This year he was awarded an MBE. Today, Marcus is mostly out of the kitchen. One of his roles is as an ambassador for Seven Seas, the Omega 3 suppliers. ‘I love fitness… I am going to do 10-15K today, because it’s just great for thinking,’ he says. Due to his active lifestyle, people often ask Marcus what supplements he takes, the chef tells me. Being an ambassador for the brand was a natural fit, since he’s been taking their supplements since childhood. Running, however, was not something he had time for earlier on in his career.

‘I’ve sacrificed more than any other chef,’ he says. It’s an enormous claim. ‘It’s my way of saying to myself; you can’t compete with me, you can’t keep up with me … you couldn’t drag me out of the kitchen [at the start]. Aged 11, my dad had taught me how to work like no other young person,’ he says.

‘When I came to London at the age of 18 it was no fitness. It was just pure work — head down. Once you sort of get into marriage and having a family it makes you do other things,’ he says. He doesn’t run to music, preferring silence so that he has time with his thoughts. The marriage in question is to Jane Wareing, who he met aged 22 at Gravetye Manor in West Sussex. Marcus was the sous chef and Jane the front of house manager: a tale as old as time, as far as hospitality goes. She seems to be, based on the way he talks about her, pretty crucial to the Marcus Wareing operation as a whole. Without her I suspect that his life would have far more work in it, but far less joy. They have three children together aged 24, 21 and 18.

Marcus will be cooking at Wimbledon again this year for many of the tennis championship’s punters and he may be part of a new TV show, in a different style to MasterChef, but it is still currently up in the air. Although he is the least busy he has ever been, he also works with Speakers for Schools for the charity Futures for All to help young people break into the workforce. Marcus mentors adults too, as part of Forward with Marcus Wareing, his culinary training program. ‘I've got a lot to give back. I've got a huge amount of experience. So now, believe it or not, I enjoy not running restaurants,’ he says.

Your aesthetic hero

Muhammad Ali, for many reasons really; for his connection with people; for what he stood for — not as a fighter, but his political views and what he fought for in America. For not fighting a war; changing his name from Cassius Clay, his ‘slave name’, as he called it; and also for the beauty and the brilliance of him in the boxing ring and for creating a style of boxing that's never been replicated and never will be. I just think his philosophy in life was quite extraordinary. He said, in an interview with Parkinson, once: ‘If I was a bin man, I’d be the greatest bin man of all time.’ That’s one of those messages that, as a young person, sticks in your head.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

Recently, I was very fortunate to have been awarded an MBE. So I went and bought a suit from Hackett, which is really nice, to go and collect it in. I’ve not bought a suit for ages, really, and I've got lots of jackets and lots of different things, but it's quite rare. And I was like, I've got those things in the wardrobe already, but Jane said: ‘No, you're going to go out and buy a new suit.’ So I bought a suit, which meant that everyone [in my family] bought something. But it’s a special occasion — it is your life's work.

A book that you’ve found inspiring

I’ve never been a colossal reader. I’ve never had time during my working career. I read when I’m on holiday. I also don’t have an amazing attention span for focusing on something, unless I’m in a kitchen, but my son has introduced me to an author named David Goggins. He is a retired navy SEAL and a black man — in his time there weren't many black people in the marines, so he was part of the top elite. My eldest son is in the forces and he said: ‘You’ve got to read this.’ It is about how he never gave up. I read both books and now I am halfway through reading them both for a second time. I find them so inspiring because they just give me energy. He gets a lot of stick on social media, but he is the genuine article.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Do you know, I am going to be really stupid here as I've actually not really been to many. There is one that I do want to go to see. It's the Bayeux Tapestry, which is coming to the British Museum. My wife and I watched The King and Conqueror, the TV series, and I loved that. I love history and I love watching period dramas. I remember watching it on the news and seeing that it was coming. It is quite extraordinary that they are going to move it here. My son is into fashion, and did an art A-level, along with my daughter — they've always gone out to so many different museums and things, and I never really had the time to do that, but this is the one I do want to go and see.

A possession you’d never sell

My watches, I think. They're the things that I will leave to my family. I love watches. I had quite a few of them at one point and, unfortunately, they all got stolen bar one, which was on my wrist. I had them all marked out for my children's 18th birthdays. My eldest son had his, but my other son and my daughter obviously didn't, and I had two watches lined up for them. The watches I've got now are the two things that I won't sell, because they're you — they're quite personal. I don't have jewellery. They're the only bit of jewellery that I have that I can pass on to my children.

The music that you work to

Work? No. Work out? It’s my Spotify playlist, really, whatever happens to turn up on my phone. I never used to listen to music. There was never a radio in our house, or on in the car or at work. Now I like all sorts.

The last podcast you listened to

My son introduced me to The Rest is Politics. I listen to a lot of LBC Radio and Times Radio. Every now and again I'll pop this on, and it's really good. I like both of them and they're both really good at debating. They make a good podcast.

Your favourite painting

When I opened a restaurant at The Berkeley they did all this beautiful design work, and I said to the designer: ‘What about paintings?’ He took me to art fairs around London and he chose this, which is called Oranges and Lemons by Tobias Till. It’s a massive piece showing London over different eras — it’s about six feet long. I’ve looked at it for 10-ish years and there’s always something on it which you’ve never seen before. When I closed the restaurant I took it with me.

What you’d take to a desert island

Guess what? Omega 3. Because I won’t be able to catch enough fish.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Noise, my wife getting up going to the gym or pilates and my work — it makes me really energised.

The items you collect

Wine. Since I've run restaurants, wine has been the alternative passion. I sometimes look at them as pieces of art, some of them undrinkable because of their age or their value, even down to simple bottles of rosé. I just love that whole world. I used to love just standing listening to the sommeliers’ knowledge and their passion about wine in my restaurants, and that's become one of my collecting things right now. I like to look at the bottles. Sometimes we go into the cellar and have a drink and just stare at them, because they’re beautiful.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

It's very funny, I was chatting to my wife about this one earlier and of course you want the obvious ones — all the good lookers. But I was on The One Show last year, and I sat next to Tim Robbins, who was promoting his new TV show, and he had the same beard and the same sort of coloured hair as me. We just look like father and son side by side, it's so funny. He is also an incredible actor.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I've had a lot on many different occasions, but where I'm from, there's a town outside Southport called Ormskirk, and there was a chef called Mark Birchall who was working there, and as time went on, this guy just got more and more known and recognised. Moor Hall now has three Michelin stars. Jen and I went there with our family, and just had one of the most extraordinary meals. I hadn't seen a dining room and a kitchen work together so beautifully, and also at the same time deliver stunning food.

The best present you’ve ever received

My wife stopped me from going to work on my 40th birthday, and we went into central London. She took me for a fabulous breakfast in a restaurant in Mayfair and then we walked to a shop called Pogson & Davis and she bought me a tailor-made suit. Jen had set this all up. It was a really little shop just around the corner from Claridge's with two amazing proper tailors — real characters. We drank champagne, chose some materials, and made this suit. I can see them right now in my head. I put on a shirt and a tie, and one of the men saw me doing my tie up and said: ‘Leave it to me.’ He tied the most perfect tie — absolutely perfect. I've never undone it. I've still got it today, 15 years later, I tell my children: ‘Do not touch that tie.’ It's the only tailor made suit that I've got, and it was my birthday present from Jane.

A hotel that you could go back and back to

Gravetye Manor, where I worked. It was an amazing place. I always wanted to run a country house hotel, because I just love the countryside, and I met my girlfriend there, who's now my wife. We go back periodically for birthdays and celebrations.

Marcus is working with the Omega 3 supplement brand Seven Seas to raise awareness of Omega 3 and healthy ageing. You can find out if you're getting enough Omega 3 in your diet with a quiz from Seven Seas here.

The Observer once called 5 Hertford Street ‘London’s most secretive club’. Maybe they were referring to its location, as I had become spectacularly lost on my way to meet Clodagh McKenna, and was more than a touch frazzled when I finally found her. ‘Have a tea. I think that would make you feel good,’ she says, maternally, her blue eyes piercing me from underneath a halo of fluffy blonde hair.

The Irish chef, author and TV presenter is best known for whipping up delicious dishes on ITV’s This Morning, but also has her own lifestyle brand. Clodagh, 50, is married to the Hon Harry Herbert, the founder of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing Ltd and the son of the 7th Earl of Carnarvon. She is ridiculously well connected. Jeanne Marine, Bob Geldof’s wife, is a close friend. So too is the designer Jasper Conran, Lady Carol Bamford and the Duke of Richmond — and I am sure more names would’ve been added to the list if I hadn’t been so late for our interview.

Clodagh and her husband have a farm and live together on the Highclere Estate (where Downton Abbey was filmed and home of the Carnarvon family). ‘We moved in there nine years ago, and we restored a part of the park, which is called Broadspear,’ she recalls.

Broadspear is a rural idyll. On her farm, Clodagh has Aberdeen Angus cows, woodland pigs, ducks, bees and six different varieties of chicken — and that’s just the animals. She has a working walled vegetable garden, a glass house, plenty of cutting flowers, pickling sheds, and she makes her own ice cream. ‘It’s an obsession, but it was an awful lot of work at the beginning,’ Clodagh recalls. ‘It’s all kind of like a juggling act at the moment, which I really love. I love that juggle.’

Clodagh grew up in the countryside, so it makes sense that she’d feel at peace among nature. ‘My memories of my childhood are of freedom and being in nature, building camps in the woods, running down with friends and jumping into a lake. We lived in a tiny little house that somebody else owned,’ she says. ‘I go back home about once a month.’

Her father was in the police force and then became a semi-professional golfer, before running a golf course and Clodagh’s mother studied for a law degree by night while working as a legal secretary by day. ‘She worked so incredibly hard, had four children [of which Clodagh is the youngest] and made sure there was food on the table,’ Clodagh says. Of her own family, particularly her children, Clodagh is tight-lipped, refusing to discuss them. ‘I’m quite protective over my family because I choose to be in front of the camera, but they don’t — that’s how I always view it.’

Clodagh began her training as a chef at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. She started doing TV work when she was 26 and had her own TV series in Ireland that then got bought up by PBS in the USA. The Today Show and The Rachael Ray Show followed, before a contract from ITV for This Morning arrived. ‘Live TV, it's always unnatural. It's not the most natural thing to do compared to, like, farming,’ she says. She’s currently working on a new cookery book, Clodagh at Home, which will encompass everything from her journey at Broadspear to recipes more generally. It will be her tenth book. ‘I love the process of it,’ she says. ‘I’m really happy in my own company.’

Your aesthetic hero

Can I have two people? Jeanne Marine, Bob Geldof's wife, who is an amazing actress and a really great friend of mine. She is definitely one of my style icons. She is a French actress, singer and songwriter, and her style is amazing, even when we're on holidays together and we're just on the beach — she’d just throw a scarf around her hair, and her earrings and everything — it makes me feel so happy. And for interiors, it would be Jasper Conran. I love his interiors, I love his passion. He's also a friend, and his eye is just incredible.

A book you’ve found inspiring

A book about the life of trees. At home, we have the most amazing woodlands, and I wasn't educated about trees, the importance of the root system and the fungi system. I just didn't know. Since I’ve read it, my whole world has changed. I look at everything so differently. I just love the energy from trees. I love doing forest bathing, which is a Japanese bathing ritual. It’s really simple and basic, you just literally go into the woods and you lie on the ground, and put your hands into the soil so that you're connected with the energy. You look up to the tree, and you do breathing exercises to breathe in all of the energy with the tree. I do it as much as I can.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I’m not a material person. My husband's the most generous person I've ever met, and he loves to spoil me because he thinks I'm always doing everything and, because I don't like buying things for myself, he goes overboard. The last thing I bought for myself was a dehydrator for my pickling shed. That was my big spend about a month ago. I've been experimenting with it, with raspberries and figs, but I'm excited for when the summer starts, and I can get that really busy.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Diane Arbus, I saw an exhibition on her in France. She is a Jewish New Yorker photographer, and all of her photography is of, let’s say… unusual situations of families. So it could be like a picture of a massive giant with his mother who is a dwarf, or a Jewish family's home in the 1960s in New York, and all their furniture is covered in plastic, and they're just sitting there. It's amazing, quite dark, but also just brilliant.

A possession that you’d never sell

I would never sell my engagement ring. My husband designed it with one of our best friends, Theo Fennell, who’s a jewellery designer. There's kind of a special engraving on it — there's only one person left in England that does this — and the engraving is all Broadspear, our chickens, the trees, our house. It's really special.

The music you work to

At the moment, it's Bob Dylan. Obsessed with Bob Dylan.

The last podcast you listened to

I love Aspire with Emma Grede, that's one of my favourites, but I also love the Goop podcast. My favourite is Martha Stewart’s podcast. She's amazing. I love her so much. I think we're the same person.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

I think that if it was my friends, they would say Goldie Hawn. Everybody says that.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Olive oil.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I am a really big morning person. I have to push myself to stay in bed. This morning I woke up at five. I’m lucky, I was born — I think it's definitely in my genes, my mother was the same — getting excited when I wake up in the morning, and about the day, about doing things, about getting started. I used to always try to make up excuses for it, because I was always too shy about saying what I just said.

The items you collect

I collect crockery. No matter where I am in the world, I'll go to markets. It could be pots or vases or egg cups. My last find was a preserving bowl — they don't make them anymore. It’s a round terracotta bowl with holes in it. It's like a colander, but it's pottery, and it's massive, and you put all your fruits and everything in it, and because it's aerated they don't go off.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I love the Merrion hotel in Dublin city centre.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

My most memorable meal would have to have been with one of my great friends, Carol Bamford, who founded and started Daylesford Farms. She has an amazing chateau called Léoube in the south of France, and she produces some beautiful wines and olive oil. I go down about once a year and dinner in her chateau is an experience of a lifetime.

Your favourite painting

It’s brand new, the Duke of Richmond gave it to me as a present. It’s not a painting, but he is an amazing photographer, and he just did an exhibition last year of sea grasses. In the Bahamas, he photographed all these amazing sea glasses, and made it into this big collection, and he kept looking at our wall in London going: ‘One would look so beautiful on that wall’. One night there was a knock on the door, and it arrived from Goodwood, which is their estate. It now sits very proudly in our living room in London.

The best present you’ve ever been given

The best present I ever received was being invited to the lunch at Fortnum and Mason’s where I met my now husband, who's the best gift I've ever gotten in my life.

For more information on Clodagh McKenna and her lifestyle brand visit her website

Sir Gregory Doran asks if I am feeling better. We were supposed to meet a few days prior, but I was ill, and a breakdown in communication means my message didn’t reach Gregory in time, leaving him waiting in a gastropub in Islington on his own. It’s to his credit that he cares how I am, given that he ‘sat there with a lonely gin and tonic looking like a wallflower’ for God-knows how long.

The former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is softly spoken and kind. He lost his husband, the actor Sir Antony Sher, four years ago to liver cancer, and it has clearly shaped who he is today. His book, Walking Shadow, is a tribute to his two great loves: his husband and The Bard.

The book is a detailed exploration of grief; half Sher’s ‘dying diaries’ and half Gregory’s quest to track down as many of Shakespeare’s First Folios as he could, a mission which he termed ‘The Folio Roadshow’. ‘In effect, it was a massive displacement activity,’ he says, looking back. He admits he couldn’t read the diaries for two years after Sher died.

‘I remember him describing the process of dying as being the strangest thing he had ever done. He approached it as the next part he was going to play,’ Gregory recalls. Sher is still omnipresent in his everyday life. Sometimes, when we talk about him it’s like he isn’t really dead at all, just away, perhaps on holiday. The pair met at the RSC and married on the very first day that it was legal for same sex couples to do so in the UK. ‘When I got my knighthood we would have been the first married knights. He’d have appreciated that joke,’ Gregory says, fondly.

A two-time Olivier Award winner, Sher famously played Richard III (on crutches), Falstaff in Henry V Part I and Part 2, Othello’s villainous Iago, and Macbeth, among many more roles. ‘He would morph into the people he was playing,’ says Gregory, who often directed his husband. ‘He was a very private, very unassuming lovely man, and not at all like the people he played.’ Several times he took a role of his to a psychiatrist and asked: ‘Why is this person behaving like this?’ Gregory recalls. When he was preparing to play Macbeth, in a production directed by Gregory, Sher found two murderers to talk to, to help him understand the role. ‘I really worried about it at the time,’ Gregory says.

His love of Shakespeare, really, has been his salvation. ‘I’ve directed all of them. It’s been over a long career, so I’ve never really tired of them,’ he says of the bard’s work. Whether it’s solving the problem of how you show ancient Egypt on stage in Anthony and Cleopatra, or what Vienna means to an English audience today in Measure for Measure, or the classic Shakespearian director’s debacle of: ‘How do you do the donkey’s head in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?’ — Gregory remains keen to tackle them all. He calls his relationship with Shakespeare ‘an untainted love affair’. It is one he is truly indebted to. ‘He helped me sort of process and understand and grieve when I lost Tony,’ he says.

Gregory will be speaking at Cambridge Literary Festival about his new book later this month and is currently preparing to revive his celebrated puppetry production of Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare’s great narrative poem, for a UK tour this June. Almost every one of his answers below is related to his beloved ‘Tony’. Gregory’s life is dedicated to one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time, but Sher’s standout role was not as Macbeth, King Lear or Falstaff — it was as Gregory’s much-missed husband.

Your aesthetic hero

I don’t know who I’d choose really! I have no idea — that’s rather unimaginative of me, isn’t it?

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The Hawaii exhibition at the British Museum, which is really quite astonishing and opens up your eyes to what was, for me, an entirely new cultural novelty.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I don't buy very much, I mean apart from necessities and food. I guess I spend an awful lot — too much money — on books. I did an inventory of all the books in the house to find out just how many I had and discovered that I had nearly 5,000 books. The last one I bought was a book called Year of the Rabbit and it’s about the murderous reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It's a graphic novel, the first I've ever bought, and I didn't know if I was going to like it, or what I would think about it, but it really pulls you into the story of these people who live under this terrible murderous reign.

Your favourite painting

That’s easy. My favourite painting is, of course, one by Tony Sher, because he did many. I'm looking at it now across the room. It's a portrait of him and Harriet Walter as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. They're both wrapped around each other. He's behind, hugging her, and it's a painting about their fear, the horror of what they've let themselves in for, and yet it's also about their independence. Their arms look like the loops of a curled snake as they wrap around each other.

A possession you’d never sell

A bust that my oldest and best friend, Richard Sharples, made of Tony. It appears in the book Walking Shadow. It's a beautiful, great likeness of Tony, but it's made of this sort of copper, so it has a kind of organic look. It captures how transient life is, really, because it just feels as though it's impermanent, but at the same time it has a great depth and profundity. It was made for Tony. He saw it before he died, and loved it, and it sits in his study downstairs. I would never part with it.

A book you’ve found inspiring

The Complete Works of Shakespeare — how will that do?

The music you work to

I always have Radio 3 on. I love having music in the house, and Tony did too. We shared our love of music.

The last podcast you listened to

Well, to be honest, I don't listen to podcasts. I did do my own podcast briefly for the RSC about the Folio Roadshow. I have friends who absolutely swear by them, and my brother listens to them all the time, but no, I've not got into podcasts, I'm afraid.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

I don't know, but we had a very interesting thing doing the audiobook of Walking Shadow, because who was going to read Tony's bits? There was a point where I could have had somebody reading my bits as well, which would have been the equivalent of your question. In the end, somebody said: ‘We could recreate Tony’s voice through AI,’ because there's lots of examples of him speaking and acting. I thought to myself, what would Tony have thought of that idea? And he would have roundly said: ‘What, you're going to put another actor out of work?’ So I've cast somebody who is not particularly famous, but a great RSC actor, called Antony Byrne. That was a very interesting piece of casting, because he doesn't sound like Tony really, but luckily I didn't have to cast me.

The items you would take with you to a desert island

I would put the same answer I said on Desert Island Discs. My shelf of photograph albums, because I made one for every year that Tony and I were together.

What gets you up in the morning

I have a project on at the moment and I can’t wait to get up and start writing. Like Tony, writing is an addiction, but I love it.

The items you collect

Grey hairs?

The hotel you could go back and back to

That’s a good question. So, if I say this, will the said hotel be likely to invite me to stay? When I got my knighthood, I got all of my family along and we stayed at Cliveden, which is the hotel near Windsor. It's a wonderful, old, stately home.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

There was a lunch in Nice in the south of France, which was a very simple Bouillabaisse. It was on the harbour in a little restaurant, and it has to be one of the best meals I've ever had.

The best present you’ve ever received

Tony, for my 50th birthday, had a brilliant artist called Michael Leonard paint my portrait. Leonard does these amazing sort of period images. He had done Tony, which is how he knew him, as a portrait of a Renaissance man holding a little carnation, and it is both perfectly a Renaissance picture and Tony. So for me, he cast me as a kind of cavalier. They're in pencil, but they look as though they are photographs. It was the most beautiful present.

Sir Gregory Doran will be speaking about his new book at the Cambridge Literary Festival on April 25. For tickets see their website. Gregory’s production of ‘Venus and Adonis’ will be touring the UK this June.

What David Beckham was to football, Monty Don is to gardening — but with more skinny scarves. At 70, his ceaseless energy for all that is green and abundant, and indeed for life itself, is still palpable. ‘If somebody gives me something that has a use, I immediately want to go and use it straight away,’ he tells me, eagerly. ‘I think: “Great!” You know, if it was a kitchen knife at Christmas, I'd immediately go and cut something with it.’

The English horticulturalist is best known for Gardeners’ World, the BBC show which is now in its 57th series and which he presents from his garden Longmeadow, in Herefordshire, where he lives with his wife Sarah. Born in 1955 in West Germany, Monty has had a long, very green-fingered career, spanning more than 30 years in television, a 12-year stretch as the Observer’s gardening editor, a 10-year stint as the president of the Soil Association and an OBE.

He has also written copious books, the latest of which is British Gardens — and a collaboration with the photographer Derry Moore. It catalogues their journey visiting our isle’s most beautiful greenery. ‘We did our first book together in 2010 and this is our seventh book together,’ Monty says. ‘We're an unlikely couple, you know? We're sort of two slightly elderly men, although I'm 20 years younger than Derry. He'll be 90 at his next birthday.’

Although he ‘never has favourites’, Wollerton Old Hall in Shropshire was ‘magical on the day’, as was Scampston Walled Garden in Malton. Lowther Castle in Penrith also stood out and Balmoral Cottage was ‘utterly charming’, although Monty did add that if we continued the conversation much longer he ‘would probably name every single garden in the book’.

As he gets older his relationship with gardening hasn’t massively changed, but he does note: ‘It’s becoming increasingly less interesting to me how you do things, and much more interesting what you do and what the result is’.

Monty is, unequivocally, a man that speaks his mind exactly. ‘I don’t have a favourite,’ he tells me when I ask what his favourite painting is; ‘I don't really go to exhibitions,’ he says when I ask for his favourite of those. Other things Monty Don doesn’t have are: an aesthetic hero, (‘obviously’), any thoughts about who would play him in a film (‘absolutely no idea’), and even the slightest concern about some of my questions (‘I don't think it's a very interesting question, to be honest’).

When it comes to things he doesn’t do, they are likewise abundant. ‘I never sell possessions,’ ‘I’m not a collector’, ‘I don’t relax to music — ever,’ and ‘I never lie in’. He doesn’t like weight loss drugs (‘there’s something inherently immoral about it, but it’s quite hard to put your finger on what’), ‘cheffy food’ (‘I just think it’s all about the chef and not about you eating it’), or the state of the world right now (‘let's hope you will make a better world than this current lot — which are just a f***ing disaster — are doing. You can quote me on that.’)

Given that the format of Consuming Passions is that I ask for a definite list of the things that are meaningful to, and liked by, our guests and they answer, you could see this as a set back. However, answering questions, and indeed living his life, exactly how he wants to is, I come to realise, part of the man’s innate Monty Don-ness. And it is that which makes him so likable.

Your aesthetic hero

Obviously, I don’t have one, but I’m trying to summon one up from the aether. Let me say Constantin Brâncuși, because I love the way that he dressed, I love his sculptures, I loved his studio.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Well, I don't really go to exhibitions in the sense that I live in the middle of the country and avoid cities except for work. Obviously, over the years, I've been to lots of exhibitions, but it sounds a bit tragic, if I name one that was 30 years ago. The truth is, the most impressive exhibition of my life was a Van Gogh exhibition at what is now Tate Britain. Then it was just the Tate Gallery. It was overwhelming. I mean, I couldn't speak, I could barely breathe. I can almost remember the intensity of the experience now.

A possession that you’d never sell

I never sell possessions anyway, but if I absolutely had to I wouldn’t sell this. It’s a stone that I picked up off the beach on Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire in 1979. It's almost round, it looks like a cannonball, and it's been with me since then. I wouldn't sell that for anything.

The items you collect

No, I’m not a collector. My wife Sarah is, I’m not. That's not the way my mind works.

A book you found inspiring

Well, there are at least 1000 of those, but one in particular, which, in a funny way, changed my life. When I was 18 I read a book called The Goshawk, by T. H. White, and I was profoundly affected by it. It's a very simple book. It's very short. It’s about how T. H. White attempted to train a goshawk using medieval techniques (this was in the 1930s). By then, of course, nobody was doing that. It was completely the wrong thing to do, which he didn't know, and goshawks are famous for being the most untrainable, certainly of all birds of prey, and pretty much of most species. So it was doomed to failure.

But it's the story of how he did it. And the whole point was that he had this intense relationship with this animal that didn't want to have a relationship with him. I just thought it was a marvellous piece of writing and also incredibly romantic in a very, very self destructive way.

Your favourite painting

I don’t have a favourite, but there are some I love more than others. I love Rembrandt. There's a painting by him called ‘A Woman Bathing in a Stream’. It is incredibly beautiful. No other painter has painted tenderness in the same way. He’s extraordinary. So if I had to choose a favourite painting, that's the one I would choose. She hasn’t got a particularly stunning body, she's not particularly beautiful, it's not particularly bright, but she's hitching up her shift to wade into the water, and it's just exquisite. She's made beautiful by the painting, but that is through his love and tenderness, rather than because she's objectively a great beauty.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

Topiary hornbeam balls.

The music that you work to

I don't. I used to, but I find now — in the last sort of five years or so — whether it's part of my hearing going a bit so therefore I have to listen harder — it’s distracting. But when I used to work to music, it was always Baroque music, namely Bach. I don't relax to music ever. What I found was it put me in the right space in order to focus. Almost the opposite of relaxing. I think it's sublime music. I hate background music. I hate it when people put music on at dinner parties and things because I just think that it means that the music has no value, has no importance. It is wallpaper music, and I don't like that. So what I find now is I either want to listen to the music or I want to work, but I can't do both simultaneously.

The last podcast you listened to

I came to podcasts a few months ago. I'd never heard one at all until this year, and I have been listening almost obsessively to The Rest is History, which I think is brilliantly done.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

I have absolutely no idea or interest. It's not something I've ever thought of. What a boring film. I don't know how to answer that question, because I have no concept of anyone who's like me. Now, that's either because I'm such an egomaniac that I am sort of completely self obsessed, or… I just, I don't think it's a very interesting question, to be honest. I know it's not one you’ve devised probably, so I don't know. I don't think I see enough films.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

A sculpture by Brâncuși or Henry Moore, Sarah and my dog.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The sun streaming through the window. But actually, what gets me up, as opposed to awake, is just a sense that I've got a lot to do. In the garden we always have an 8:30am meeting, and by then I like to have exercised, washed, had breakfast, fed the dogs. So in summer, I normally get up at about 6am.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I associate hotels entirely with work, and I stay in a lot. It wouldn't be uncommon for me to stay in 50 different hotels a year. There's one in Venice that I like, I can't remember what it's called though. It's not very grand, it's not a fancy one, but it's just really central. And what I like about it is that you just walk out the door into a boat. Usually for me it’s all about: is it quiet? Is it reasonably comfortable? Are the sockets where I want there to be sockets so I can charge things? Is the food any good? Is there room service? It's all about function, rather than a lovely place to be. I never spend time off in a hotel.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I’ve had lots, I’ve been lucky, but plucked at random: we were filming a series I did in Italy, a long time ago, and on the first day's filming, we shot just outside Naples in a small holding. And the people there said we must have lunch with them. They had this modern house with a very modern kitchen, and they put up tables on a tarmac driveway in front of the house, and we proceeded to have the most delicious meal imaginable. It was nothing fancy.

I can remember it to this day, pasta with lemons and peas, with the best lemon in the world, and these peas that were picked fresh. And he made the wine from his grapes, and they'd pressed the olive oil themselves. The family were all there, and it was just joyous. This is why you have a mouth and you need to put calories inside it. It chimed completely with the philosophy that Sarah and I have which is, you take simple, fresh, seasonal ingredients, you treat them with great respect, but not with solemnity, and you do things simply and sort of just try and get the very best from them. And this was a supreme example of that, and it was the incongruity of the location and the wonderfulness of the food that made it completely memorable.

The best present you’ve ever received

My first dog. For my 21st birthday I received a dog from my mother and a field from my father. The dog was called Gretel, which is slightly odd when I look back on it, and she was a labrador.

‘British Gardens’ by Monty Don and Derry Moore is out now and available in all good bookshops, in store and online.

In a corduroy blazer, jeans and argyle-patterned socks with loafers, John Wilson is the archetypal Centrist Dad — which is, fittingly, the name of the cover band in which he plays the bass in his free time. During the week, he’s on BBC Radio 4 presenting This Cultural Life, interviewing everyone from Paul McCartney to Sir Salman Rushdie. On the weekend, he rocks out to Icona Pop and Charli XCX’s ‘I Love it’, with ITV News's political editor Robert Peston on vocals and the former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls on drums.

‘I am a dad, I work at the BBC, I make arts programmes, and I try to offset that sense of boring normality by playing bass in a punk rock band,’ says John, before sighing deeply and adding ‘I find the name embarrassing.’ I propose that it’s not the name alone that is embarrassing. For example, one may look at Ed Balls and not immediately think: drummer. ‘That's because Ed Balls is not a drummer. Ed Balls has a go at anything and commits fully,’ John confirms. All the proceeds from the band's gigs go to charity. They recently played at Dingwalls in Camden and raised £10,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital. ‘Half the Cabinet were in the audience. It was kind of quite weird. Ed Miliband dancing at the back, and the Foreign Secretary [Yvette Cooper] — she is always there right in the front. It's quite strange. I don't know why. She seems to be a fan.’

We are speaking in the Green Room at the National Gallery, where John is preparing to present a new monthly in-conversation series called Picture This. We were meant to be in the staff canteen, but the sparsely populated room made John feel self-conscious, as though people may have listened in. Ironic, given he has made a career out of people listening in, although usually he isn’t talking about himself.

John was born in London in 1965 on Millionaires row, which is now Billionaires row, in Hampstead — ’that road which is just now just ludicrous, ostentatious, bad taste mansions’. His family lived in Enfield and one of those houses was then the maternity wing of the North Middlesex Hospital.

Broadcasting runs in the family: John's father is the former Arsenal goalkeeper and sports presenter Bob Wilson. John grew up just outside of London, near Potter’s Bar, but had a farming family on his father’s side, and consequently spent a lot of summers in Lincolnshire, working on their farm. His duties included mucking out chicken coops (‘Disgusting. I can still smell it’), and working in the grain silo, plagued by gigantic rats which it was his job to exterminate (‘I still sometimes have nightmares about that’).

It was after flunking his A-Levels (apart from English) that John got his first job as a young hack for a North London outfit while repeating his final year of school. He worked for titles such the Islington, Haringey and Enfield Advertiser. A degree in English and Media studies at the University of Southampton followed, after which he became a reporter on the Camden New Journal and then a presenter on Radio 5’s The Mix. He went on to present Radio 4’s flagship arts series Front Row.

He now lives in his former stomping ground of Camden with his wife, Tessa, an artist and interior designer, and their dog Billie, ‘a very cute Scottish Terrier’. They share four children — two from her previous relationship, one from a previous relationship of his, and one other. John has just recorded the 150th episode of This Cultural Life. The elusive, now deceased, German-British painter Frank Auerbach was his favourite interviewee. The artist was famous for not giving interviews, but aged 92 sat down with John after the broadcaster had met his son at a party, and convinced him that it would be a good idea. The most intimidating interview John has done was with David Bowie in New York in 2002. ‘I was terrified,’ he says.

‘I'm a different interviewer now from the way I've worked in the past, definitely. I say a lot less,’ he says. ‘It’s quite weird being interviewed as well, because although I ask short questions, I clearly give long answers,’ he says referring to our hour-long chat, which we have merrily run over.

Your aesthetic hero

Growing up in the suburbs in the 1970s my musical hero, and aesthetic hero, is Paul Weller. The weird thing is, nearly 50 years later, he's a friend of mine because we worked together and I edited a book of his lyrics. Paul Weller is still the best dressed man. He's just impeccable, always. I would say him or Steve McQueen.

In terms of aesthetics, I probably have to mention my wife, Tessa, because she's an interior designer. She basically makes my life look better, because the interior of my house just looks so much better because of her amazing eye. I live in a very aesthetically pleasing way because of her.

A book that inspired you

Germinal by Émile Zola was amazing, and it stuck with me, the imagery, because it's about a coal mine strike in France in the 19th century. The layers of detail of the lives and the descriptions of life underground are amazing.

The possession you’d never sell

My dad’s shirt, which he wore in the 1971 FA Cup Final, which is the day he won . He gave it to me for my 50th birthday.

The items you collect

Records. I can't go past a record shop without going in and coming out with at least one or two records that I never knew I needed.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I saw the Gerhard Richter exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation recently in Paris, which was just amazing. I love Richter, he has such a range of work, and it's almost like whatever he turned his hand to, he was a master of. His paintings were astonishing. As are the subject matter, for example: the post-war German experience, the sense of freedom he conveys. I’d love to interview Gerhard, but he's now too old and doesn't speak very good English. I met him once, actually. That was quite a thrill. But he doesn’t do interviews.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I go back and back to Paris all the time, and I'd love to go back to the hotel there, called Château Voltaire, which is quite new. It's too expensive for me to stay there again (I managed to get a deal last time) but they had beautiful rooms, very comfortable beds, amazing breakfast and the staff were just fantastic.

Your favourite painting

I don't have a favourite painting, but there's one that I always come back to here — because we're in the National Gallery, and the format of this interview series I'm doing [Picture This] is that the guest picks a painting. So, I would probably go for not one of the big ones, as much as I love those, but actually there's this painting which I always stop in front of. It's quite small, it's John Singer Sargent, and it's called Wineglasses, and I'd like it because it's the sort of painting that I could hang on my wall at home, and it would look good. It's just sunlight coming through, it looks like it's in France, there are two wine glasses and a table, and it looks so inviting. It’s beautiful.

The music that you work to

Because my job is interviewing people, primarily, I can't work to music when I'm doing that. When I listen to music, I am really engaged with music. I listen to a lot of music but I would say anything by Víkingur Ólafsson, the Icelandic classical pianist, is my favourite. He's just got the most incredible poetic touch, and he plays with such grace and beauty and fluidity. It’s absolutely mesmerising.

The last thing of note you bought for yourself

Quite recently I bought myself a new bass guitar. A Fender Precision. I was in a band when I was at university, and we were kind of quite serious. We thought we were going to make it. My claim to fame is that we supported My Bloody Valentine on Valentine's night in 1988. We never made it, and 40 years later I started playing in the most silly comedy band of all time [Centrist Dad], and I did have a bass, because I've always had a bass, but I bought myself a nice new one.

What happened was, I was at a dinner party, and Robert Peston was there. I sort of knew him a bit. His neighbour had invited us around for dinner, and he had a guitar. I picked up his guitar, and he said: ‘Do you play?’ And I said: ‘No, I play bass.’ He said: ‘We will have to have a jam sometime,’ to which Robert replied: ‘Well, if you need a singer, I'll sing.’ I was thinking, this is a terrible idea, so I said: ‘Well, yeah, the problem is, it's always impossible to find a drummer,’ to which Robert replied: ‘Well, Ed can play.’ I said: ‘Who's Ed?’ and he said: ‘Ed Balls!’ It turned out, when we had the first rehearsal session, that Ed Balls couldn't play drums, but that didn't stop him. We started off doing things like the Buzzcocks, The Clash and the Sex Pistols, but actually now most of our repertoire is Chappel Roan, Taylor Swift and Charli XCX.

The last podcast you listened to

It would have been The Rest is Politics this morning, listening to Alistair and Rory talking about the madness of Donald Trump and how he's gonna dig himself out of the hole that he has dug for all of us to live in.

I know This Cultural Life is a podcast, but I don't listen to a lot of podcasts because I find a lot of them so self indulgent and rambling and boring. I work in radio and our programme is tightly edited, and I just think the art of editing has been lost with podcasts, because very often they start recording, they start talking… and they ramble on for an hour and a half.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Steve McQueen, because he's already got the clothes.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Desert boots for a desert island and a flare gun, so that I can be rescued — I don’t want to be on a desert island.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

My dog, Billie. In the morning she can be very loud, because we have a garden and we have foxes, which of course drives her mad. She's Billie the girl, because there's lots of cool Billies: Billie Eilish, Billie Piper, Billie Whitelaw, Billie Holiday.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

I went to Iran three times, and there was a meal I had in Isfahan, which I always think about, because it was just the most incredible food. I had this one meal near the main square, which is called the Naqsh-e Jahan Square, and has the Great Mosque. It was magical. That was one of the most amazing meals, which makes me very sad to think about, because I loved Iran, loved the people — absolutely hideous, brutal government, obviously — but the people were the most welcoming, hospitable people I think I've ever met, which makes what's happening at the moment with the follies of the idiotic Donald Trump so heartbreaking.

The best present you’ve ever received

My children. The gift of fatherhood.

For how to buy tickets or other information on the National Gallery's new in conversation series, Picture This, hosted by John Wilson, visit their website. Events run until June 26, 2026.

Claire Foy and I meet on the ground floor of the Soho Hotel in a room seemingly lifted from a Country Life interiors spread. I arrive early and move an elaborate flower display from the centre of a vast coffee table, on either side of which are plush, yet deceptively sturdy sofas that take both of us by surprise as we try to sit down. We joke that it resembles the setup of a Presidential interview.

Claire, who turns 41 next month, arrived bang on time, a pot of Earl Grey (no milk) in tow. She declines the biscuit that accompanies it — butter and lemon — and insists that I take it. She wears a thick woollen jumper by J. W. Anderson, various threads of pink and pastel green woven together into an oversized knit that belies her delicate frame, which she pairs with blue, partially torn, patchwork jeans. Her hair is slicked back into a bob while her makeup is minimal, save for a spot of rouge on her lip.

We are here to discuss her new film, The Magic Faraway Tree, an adaptation of the Enid Blyton series of the same name. Claire stars opposite Andrew Garfield as a family matriarch who moves to the countryside after becoming disillusioned with life. ‘I knew that my role was to serve as a conduit between the original series and the adaptation,’ she explains. ‘My character is not particularly faithful to what’s in the book.’ In Blyton’s series, the mother embodies a traditional role by looking after the children and cooking their meals. The new adaptation transforms her into the breadwinner — and is generous enough to give her a name.

Polly Thompson is an engineer who once dreamt of building spaceships and sold her soul inventing an Orwellian, voice-controlled fridge that tracks its users’ movements in order to optimise recommendations (‘You normally drink wine at this hour’). She experiences a moral crisis and quits, prompting the family to up sticks and move to the countryside so that her husband, Timothy, can reconnect with his Italian roots and make tomato sauce. The children are introduced as tech-addled gremlins who, thanks to time spent in the magic faraway tree — which they discover in the enchanted woods near their farmhouse — turn out to be rather enterprising. Here is proof that time in fantasy lands (and indeed, the great outdoors) can bring joy and enlightenment to even the stroppiest of teenagers.

‘It’s so difficult to please all fans of the original books,’ Claire says, ‘but I think we’ve at least got the essence of it — and the humour and the madness of the world that Blyton created.’ Polly, she says, ‘is there to represent the mothers who are trying to work, have kids… do it all and still don’t quite know which is the right direction to go in’. What does she, a mother of one, think of doing it all? ‘So much of it is based on the idea of a woman being exhausted — whether you have kids or not,’ she replies. ‘I just think you have to be kind to yourself and do as much as you possibly can, to the best of your abilities.’ Her daughter, Ivy Rose, is now 10.

Claire split from her husband of four years, the actor Stephen Campbell Moore, in 2018 and has been open about the practical challenges of balancing work and motherhood, describing it in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar in January as ‘a logistical s***show’. She talks of her time on the set of The Magic Faraway Tree, however, as if it were less of a professional engagement than a holiday. She explains how she grew close to the film’s child actors (‘The movie is very much Delilah’s, Billie’s and Phoenix’s,’ Claire beams). ‘They’re incredible actors and really, really special kids. There was something really beautiful about being in a film that wasn’t about you, at all.’

It must be a welcome change for an actress who earned her stripes with leading roles in some of the most recognisable period dramas of our time. Cementing her status as one of Britain’s finest with her Emmy Award-winning turn as Elizabeth II in The Crown, Claire followed this up with parts in Andy Serkis’s biographical drama, Breathe (in which she played Diana Cavendish) and in Anne Sewitsky’s A Very British Scandal (in which she played Margaret, Duchess of Argyll).

How does she learn her lines? ‘I don’t really learn lines per se,’ she says. ‘I do lots of work on the script and read it over and over again. Dialogue, for me, is an extension of feeling. If I don’t remember a line, it’s because I haven’t understood why I was saying it.’ She pauses. ‘The only time I’ve actually learnt lines was when I did a play [Lungs, at the Old Vic] and I needed to know them off by heart before we started rehearsals. That was really hard. I was on holiday with my family, which made it even harder. They were splashing in the pool while I was on a balcony and I would look at them and think: “Ugh, I wanna do that!”’, she says with an exaggerated grimace.

This June, Claire will return to the silver screen with a veteran of the form: Richard E. Grant. The two will star together in Savage House, a black comedy period film that is to combine both their favourite genres. ‘He’s a very special human being,’ Claire says of her co-star. Is there anyone in the trade whom she hasn’t yet collaborated with, but wants to? ‘I’d love to work with Baz Luhrmann,’ she says. ‘The visual world he creates, be it in Moulin Rouge or in Strictly Ballroom, is so incredible. I would love to be a bit extreme like that — a little bit over the top, for a change.’

Claire’s flirtations with fashion have so far sated her desire for more flair and fantasy (her roles, she says, tend to be ‘quite real’). ‘I went to the new Bottega Veneta show last month and I thought Louise Trotter’s clothes were just incredible. I love being so close to that level of craftsmanship, and the sets designed for those shows are always so much fun.’ This year’s iteration featured a red carpet and 421 specially commissioned Max Lamb chairs. ‘The clothes were all so deftly pleated,’ Claire continues. ‘In order for just one element of it to move, you kind of need 15 different pieces of fabric? Anyway, it blew my mind.’

‘I also loved seeing older models on the runway,’ she adds. Would she ever walk in a show herself? ‘I’d love to!’ she gushes. ‘It’d be an absolute dream. I recently watched the America’s Next Top Model documentary, and golly, I used to devour that show — rightly or wrongly… I mean, getting up on that runway is kind of peak performance, isn’t it?’ Who is her favourite walker? ‘I’ve never actually seen Naomi Campbell walk in person,’ she says, ‘but just watching videos of her in shows and seeing her strut… It’s like watching a rock star.’

Your aesthetic hero

Carrie Bradshaw. I watched Sex and the City at such a formative age and although I’m not one for designer pieces, which she and some of the other characters are wont to wear, I enjoy when things clash — the whimsy of Carrie Bradshaw. As far as interiors are concerned, I mine much of my inspiration from film sets. I absorb so much from what I watch and always wonder to myself: ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if your house was like the one from Something’s Got To Give?’

Your favourite painting

Anything by Turner. I love the skies, and I could happily live in any one of his pictures.

An exhibition that really impressed you

Fittingly, I went to the Turner and Constable exhibition at Tate Britain recently, and loved that.

A book you found inspiring

Thinking about the books that shaped me when I was a child, I remember being drawn to stories where you could see animals not just ‘being human’, but also what was happening to them behind the scenes. I loved books where you could see what kind of house they lived in, like the Beatrix Potter series or Fantastic Mr Fox. I was drawn to tiny details and to actual illustrations — Dogger, by Shirley Hughes, who wrote as well as illustrated the book, was also massive in my house growing up. I think illustrators are extraordinary.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Everyone on the set of The Crown said that Viola [Prettejohn], who played young Elizabeth, looks identical to me. So probably her? Although I’m also really fond of Delilah [Bennett-Cardy], who plays my eldest daughter in The Magic Faraway Tree. She’s brilliant. I’d get her to do it.

The last thing of note you bought for yourself

Probably plants. I replaced one in my kitchen recently and bought myself a jasmine.

A possession you’d never sell

That’s such a fun question. I guess as an actor you’re always thinking: ‘When times get tough, what can I sell?’ What would I never sell, though? I suppose, any of my family photos or pictures that my daughter has drawn and I’ve had framed. Anything sentimental. There’s no way anyone is getting their hands on those.

A hotel you could go back to again and again

There are so many. I love hotels, which is a bit of a problem. I really love the hotel that’s inside the Palace of Versailles: I’ve never had service like it in my entire life. It was insane. Unbelievable. I hasten to add that this wasn’t a trip I paid for. I don’t know whether I have as high expectations when I take myself on holiday.

I’m also a really big fan of an English bed & breakfast. I think we do them really well. I also love Heckfield Place and The Newt. Anywhere with a spa, a steam room, a sauna and a plunge pool.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

Hmmm. There’s one I come back to again and again, which is the schnitzel at The Delaunay. I always come away from it thinking ‘Mmmm, that’s really good’. But as for most memorable, I had my 40th birthday at Primeur in Islington. They change the menu every week depending on what food they get from their suppliers, and everything they do is amazing. Although one of the items on the menu at my birthday was tripe, which didn’t go down very well.

The best present you’ve ever received

I’m really fond of candles, bath products, pyjamas — that sort of thing. But really, it’s anything from my daughter. Anything she’s made for me.

The items you collect

I like to collect ceramics from various locales. I love a souvenir, even if it’s just a single plate from somewhere I want to remember.

'The Magic Faraway Tree' is out in cinemas now.

Producing 18k-gold jewellery is a natural fit for someone whose surname is Goldsmith. Sheherazade Goldsmith's Loquet boutique in Belgravia, where we meet, has few decorative elements, apart from a large bowl of sweets in a glass jar. It’s a tribute to the ‘pick n’ mix’ nature of her playful charms, such as a martini glass and a diamond-studded octopus, which can be used to personalise the pendants that her business is known for. Born Sheherazade Bentley, she launched Loquet with the model Laura Bailey in 2013.

Before a career in luxury jewellery, the 51-year-old wore a number of different hats. She worked in fashion, as a PA for Joan ‘Mrs. B’ Burstein, the founder of London boutique Browns. Then Sheherazade was an environmental activist with an organic food business, Deli'Organic, in Battersea — ‘running that was a nightmare’. She wrote columns for The Sunday Times and Harper’s Bazaar, and took a sabbatical to study investigative journalism at City St George's, University of London, before she realised ‘that I was not the journalist I wanted to be.’

‘I was slightly bored by my own journalism,’ she says. Sheherazade writes all the copy for Loquet’s website and their newsletter, but still finds ‘every word painful’. She adds: ‘There is a real shame in changing careers. You feel like somehow you're changing because you failed that version of yourself in some way, but I don't think that's true.’

Born in Camberwell, London, to the financier and entrepreneur John Bentley and the actor Viviane Venture, Sheherazade was privately educated at the French Lycée in London and Aiglon College in Switzerland. She married Lord (then Zac) Goldsmith of Richmond Park in 1999. They are divorced, but share three children and Sheherazade has been in a relationship with the public-relations executive Matthew Freud since 2021.

When we meet she is wearing a large green puffer coat that has a series of small rips on the right sleeve. Her short brown hair is pinned back with small black bows and, as she considers a question, she gently rests the heart of her locket between her two front teeth. The beauty of her job, she says, is that it is a way of adding some sparkle to the everyday. ‘You could easily wear that from day to night,’ she says of one of her necklaces. ‘I definitely make jewellery made for wearing. I think it's just because of my own chaotic life — it's like, you just have to put on what you've got!’

Your aesthetic hero

I really love AnOther Magazine — it’s really cool and I love visually how they do everything — whether it's the graphics, the photography itself or the print. I really appreciate print as well. Anything in print. It’s kind of an old-fashioned thing, but I love how it comes out. My visual inspiration has probably come through fashion brands. People that really inspired me in the 1990s were Miuccia Prada — and she still does — everything about her collections has always been really focused on craftsmanship, but also she's really allowed women to express themselves and be playful. Phoebe Philo, as well, just again for her design ethos, and her career trajectory: when she was at Chloé, the femininity that went with the Chloé collection, and then when she transferred to Celine, her use of colour, I felt, was amazing. Again, it allowed women to dress in a very simple, elegant way, but really have fun with colour — she really introduced that into people's work wardrobes.

A book you found inspiring

I read a book last year [Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov] that was the International Booker Prize winner, and it was really beautiful because it was about somebody who has Alzheimer's, but it was the idea of: history is whatever we make of it, and how we remember things. That book, I thought, was amazing, because it is about your stories, but how you remember them.

The last thing of note that you bought yourself

A silk Prada bra. It is fluorescent yellow and there was something really happy and sunny about it.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The latest Jenny Saville I went to at the National Gallery was absolutely superb. She’s kind of like a Lucien Freud, but there's a feminine something about her — instead of visualizing humans through a male perspective, there's just that female understanding of what it means to be human.

A possession you would never sell

My kids made me this really sweet gift. It’s a blue jar, and it has all these twigs in it that they picked up from Richmond Park — we used to live near there — and they attached leaves to them, and wrote what I represented to them on the leaves. They’ve redone it twice since they did it, because they were quite little at the time, and so the branches have collected more and more leaves. That is one possession I would never sell.

The music that you work to

Silence. I curate my surroundings, so I need objects that are attached to fundamentally fantastic memories.

The last podcast you listened to

It’s quite a boring answer, but I listen to The Daily, by The New York Times. I really love news. I mean, it's kind of an odd thing, but I like discussion and news — my children are quite interested in news and politics and so on. The Daily is the one I go to first, but then I try and get different opinions, always, so I'll listen to something by the Guardian, or I'll listen to The Story, which is The Sunday Times’. I'll swap about just to try and understand, and to get a 360 on it all. I don't feel safe unless I know what's going on, and the truth is I don't have time to read a newspaper during the day, although I do read the Financial Times on the weekends. Weirdly, being a jeweller, because you're affected so much by the price of gold, production, tariffs, all the rest of it, you sort of know what's going on, because it's going to affect all of those things. I sort of know when the price of gold is going to go up again just because of what's happening.

Who would play you in a film of your life

Léa Seydoux

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I’d probably take my locket, actually, because it would have the people I love inside and would have something to do with feeling strength or hope or some kind of mantra or message, so that when I was feeling depressed or in despair I’d have that to hold on to. For the charms inside, I’d have my children’s three birth stones and a little blue iris, for hope; the moon, for female intuition; and probably the happy face, to remind myself to keep smiling.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

A cup of tea.

The items you collect

I don't really collect anything as such, but it is probably jewellery, I guess, if I had to say something.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Bull in Burford. It’s a country hotel in the Cotswolds and has the most delicious food.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

Probably the River Café, in London, and it isn't one particular meal, it's what the River Café is associated with. It's a restaurant that I've gone to for forever. It's kind of seen me grow up, if you like, and it's always been a celebration, whether I'm just meeting friends, or whether I'm taking the children because they've graduated, or it's a birthday. So those meals are always memorable, but it's less to do with the food and more to do with the fact that we're all together, aside from the fact that the food is also incredible.

Your favourite painting

There’s a beautiful Lowry [Children on the Beach with a Dog], which is unlike a Lowry, and it's three people walking on the beach with a little dog and it just reminds me of my little dog [Shady, a Bedlington Terrier/whippet cross] and my three kids. It’s my screensaver on my phone.

The best present you’ve ever received

Somebody gave me a first edition of Pablo Neruda love poems — that was pretty amazing.

For more information or to shop pieces by Loquet, see their website.

Sarah Raven, the gardener, writer and cook, is definitely more in touch with the outside world than she is with a screen. Three times during our Zoom call her microphone connects to a different device (she doesn’t know which) leaving her mouthing silently. ‘Sorry about that,’ she says when she re-connects. ‘I’m not good with technology at the best of times.’

Sarah and her eponymous business are titans of the gardening world. Her company, which delivers seeds and plants to order, was begun from a small cutting patch using just six plants from her mother’s garden. This inspired her first book, The Cutting Garden (1996), which she wrote during maternity leave. She has since written many more and has gained notoriety for her appearances on Gardeners’ World. Her podcast, grow, eat, cook, arrange, is much beloved, as is her garden at Perch Hill, where she regularly teaches gardening courses and which is open to the public to visit on set days.

‘It’s not very nice weather, is it?’ she bemoans when we talk. Wrapped up in a large grey cardigan, she is clearly suffering withdrawal symptoms from enjoying her beloved garden in the sunshine over the winter months. Sarah has had a love of the great outdoors from a young age. She was born a twin in 1963 in Marylebone, London, and was the joint youngest of five children. Her father, John Earle Raven, was an amateur botanist who sparked her interest in plants. He was a classics don at King’s College, the University of Cambridge, where Sarah grew up. ‘I used to run on King's College Chapel’s lead roof as a sort of game,’ she recalls. Her gardener mother, Faith Raven, also had green fingers and inherited the Ardtornish Estate in Lochaber, Scotland, famed for its gardens.

As a child, Sarah went to a school run by Catholic nuns who, she told Desert Island Discs, thought she was ‘naughty’ and eventually asked her to leave, aged 16. ‘It’s unbelievably beautiful … but I found Cambridge slightly prickly… that whole academic sphere is quite bitchy’, she recalls. Sarah studied for an MA in history at the University of Edinburgh before changing tact to train as a doctor at the University of London, waitressing at the River Café in her free time. ‘[When I graduated] I thought: “Well, what do I really want to do?” I knew a couple of doctors, and I just always admired them, and loved hearing about what they did in their day to day work life, and so I just decided I had to go back to college because I hadn't got physics or chemistry A-level,’ she says.

Shockingly, Sarah’s gamble paid off, despite her receiving just 8% in her first physics end-of-term exam, and she went on to work as a junior doctor at Charing Cross Hospital in London. ‘I really loved it,’ she says, ‘but then I had children, because by the time I came out of that sort of sausage machine [education] I was 30 and I was married and I just wanted a child, basically.’ The gruelling hospital shifts were untenable, Sarah found. She had met her husband, the writer Adam Nicolson, on a skiing holiday, which she was invited to by his sister. After she gave up medicine they moved to East Sussex, to live in Perch Hill.

For a while, the family also lived at Sissinghurst in Kent, the former home of Vita Sackville-West, who was Adam’s grandmother. Sarah shares two grown-up daughters with Adam, as well as three stepsons from his previous marriage. ‘They are all in London, bar one, and all have kind of professional serious jobs,’ she says, proudly.

Sarah will be speaking at the Cambridge Literary Festival on April 23 about her new book, A Year of Cut Flowers, which is out now.

Your aesthetic hero

I think Vita Sackville-West, she was a gardener, but she also had incredible bohemian tastes in interiors — and I really love her interiors. Very kind of shabby but glamorous, and beautiful textures and very rich colours. I'm married to her grandson, he's sort of grew up in her home, so his aesthetic I also admire very much.

The music that you work to

I don't. I used to. I find it difficult to concentrate now, which is sad in a way, but I have to have absolute quiet. Even if there's a radio three rooms away, I would need to go and turn that off.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The Marie Antoinette exhibition at the V&A Museum. I mean, it is a bit of a cliche, because I know a lot of people have written a lot about it, but I really enjoyed it. I botanized when I was there, because, of course, the accuracy of the needlework is incredible, and so a lot of the plants in the fabrics are completely identifiable, and I loved looking at that, as well as the sort of crazy flamboyance of it. I enjoyed it, but it was overcrowded. They've sold too many tickets.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I would definitely say one or other, or ideally both, of my dogs (mongrelly labradoodles called Curly and Dusty). I don't think I'd be allowed to take my daughters, because they have to get on with their lives, but if I could I’d take my family, too.

Your favourite painting

A Tom Hammick. He’s a friend actually, and we have a lot of his stuff, including a huge woodcut of somebody watering a garden, which I absolutely love.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I get up very early: between 5:15 and 5:30am, and nature and the garden is what gets me up. In the winter, not so much, so I tend to write very early in the morning before work — that's what gets me out of bed. I make a very weak, very long black coffee with very nice coffee in a huge mug, and I come upstairs and I write.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I bought some perfume, but it was actually a present from my husband to me. Does that count? It smells of tomato leaf and one of my greatest joys in life is pinching out my tomatoes. It’s Vétiver Écarlate by L'Artisan Parfumeur.

The items you collect

Oh, God, everything. My current fad is on sale, cashmere jerseys in a small size, so that I can wear them underneath as a kind of under layer. I feel the cold very badly, so sometimes I might even wear three underneath a dress.

The best present you’ve ever received

As a family, we spend a lot of time in Crete, and we really love it, because we're nature freaks, and the wild flowers are amazing. And we spent a winter in Crete, and when we came back, Adam had bought this [a small boat made of clay filled with pomegranates] for my birthday. He had it made. This is a traditional thing — a welcoming house gift — when you set up a new house, because a pomegranate is a sort of a symbol of the home. He found a potter who made it for me.

A book that has inspired you

There's a massive book on Cretan endemic wildflowers, and I find it really inspiring when the weather's a bit crap and spring is coming. Quite often, I just start flicking through it and it just makes me think: ‘Oh yes, there's beauty out there’. I find nature very inspiring and reassuring, so when things are feeling a bit dire in the world, and we have world wars and things, I sort of focus in a lot, and find nature very reassuring, but I think I particularly love wild, abundant beauty, so I just gaze at these pictures.

A possession you’d never sell

A tile that Vita bought in Tehran, when she went travelling. It's just the most beautiful colour, and she was very keen on this colour [a type of turquoise] which came from Isfahan. This particular glaze has got lead in it, so you can't get it anymore, because it's quite toxic. I just really love it. I put a vase on it and, even if it's tiny, it just makes it look so glamorous and beautiful.

The last podcast you listened to

I really love This Cultural Life. I listened to one last night — the Salman Rushdie episode, which is about two years old. I've listened to them all several times. I listened to Tracey Emin yesterday. I just find them such a rich resource of information about what's going on at that moment. But actually even beyond that, I find them really brilliantly broad. I'm not so keen on the actor-y ones, I suppose, just because I'm not a great film or theatre buff, but I love the ones on music, culture, art and artists. I just find it really educational. I really enjoy them. I have a funeral on Tuesday, and it's a four hour drive there and back, and in the past I would have rather dreaded that, but I was just thinking: ‘I'll just download lots of This Cultural Life, and I'll just listen to them again’. I find I hear something different, even if I've heard it before.

Who would play you in a film of your life

Who is the woman who's married to the Mumford and Sons man? Carey Mulligan. She's brilliant in The Ballad of Wallis Island.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I’m not a big hotel person, actually. Because I love cooking, I tend to prefer renting a house to hotels. I did really like this hotel in Deauville in France, on the beach, which is called Hôtel Barrière Le Normandy. Would I go back there again and again? Yes, if I wanted to write. As Adam and I both write, when we're here [at Perch Hill] we get a bit dug into what's going on day to day, and so if we have a deadline, quite often, we might go off somewhere.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

Probably globe artichokes served whole with something called Angelica sauce, which isn't made with the herb Angelica, it's hard boiled egg, anchovy, capers, olives, lots of parsley, red wine vinegar and olive oil. I had it all the way through my childhood — I spent a lot of time in Italy as a child, and you would go to the market and buy these amazing globe artichokes at Easter — because they're very early to crop there, and often in Sicily, even earlier. So we've got artichokes in the garden so I make it a lot with, maybe on the side, really good bread and unsalted butter or perhaps some really nice, waxy new potatoes just dug up from the garden and cooked with salt and mint, and possibly a green salad — and that would be it. That would be my most memorable meal.

To see Sarah at the Cambridge Literary Festival on April 23, visit their website. A Year of Cut Flowers: A life of growing and arranging for all seasons by Sarah Raven is out March 12 (Bloomsbury Publishing, Hardback, £30) Photography by Jonathan Buckley.

Although Eve Myles is best known for gunning down campy aliens with unbridled enthusiasm as Gwen Cooper in the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, in reality the Welsh actor is about as kick-ass as a kitten. In her own words, she is ‘very fluffy… very quiet, not very good in social environments and constantly living under a hood of imposter syndrome’.

Why then is she constantly being cast as a woman that is a force to be reckoned with? ‘I don’t know what they see in me,’ she says ‘but I have had very strong feisty women around me all my life, my mother being top of the list … so I can identify with women like that. I wish I was a bit more like that, but I'm the most non confrontational person you'll ever meet, whereas most of the characters I play are the most confident, confrontational women going’.

The new ITV six-part thriller Gone sees her star alongside The Walking Dead’s David Morrissey. ‘He is someone everybody does need to work with, because he’s extraordinary,’ she says. In the show Eve is Detective Annie Cassidy, tasked with investigating David’s character, an impassive headmaster whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. When I mention that I’ve watched the first episode, I’m surprised at how eager she is to know if I liked it.

The actor has, after all, received accolades for not just Torchwood, but for portraying Claire Ripley in Broadchurch, for her role as the Queen’s personal dresser Mrs. Jenkins in the period drama series Victoria and for her moving performance in ITV’s recent re-telling of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, The Hack. Not to mention, she has won two BAFTA Cymru awards for Best Actress: one in 2007, the other in 2018, and was awarded the highly coveted title of Wales’ Sexiest Woman in 2013. When I tell her that I found the first episode of Gone gripping, she graciously thanks me. ‘I think people forget that it’s very nerve wracking for us,’ she explains.

Born in 1978, Eve grew up in Ystradgynlais, Powys, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons. In 2000 she graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, after meeting her husband there, before landing her first major role in BBC Wales’s drama series Belonging.

Eve got her break in 2006 as the lead in Torchwood, a role which was written especially for her by showrunner Russell T Davies after her one-off appearance in Doctor Who. He described her as ‘One of Wales’ best-kept secrets’. Her role in the thriller Keeping Faith orUn Bore Mercher, as it aired in Wales, saw her embrace an iconic yellow raincoat, and her heritage, by learning to speak Welsh. She starred in it alongside her husband Bradley Freegard, with whom she shares three children aged 16, 12 and 4. ‘Sleep’s for losers, Lotte,’ she tells me about parenthood. She is the kindest celebrity I have ever interviewed by a country mile — and the sleepiest.

Your aesthetic hero

Linda Hamilton, the original Sarah Connor, who I got to meet. I based Gwen Cooper on her, actually. I think that she is physically strong, mentally strong — and when she brought that character to the screen [in The Terminator] we had never seen a female like that before. She said that she turned up for the second film and even Arnold Schwarzenegger said: ‘Oh my god: this woman is ripped’. It was shocking and thrilling to see that, and I loved it.

An exhibition that really impressed you

My daughter’s artwork in her school hall.

A book you found inspiring

To Kill a Mockingbird. I think Scout is one of the greatest female characters ever written. I love it so much that I bought it for my daughter for Christmas. She's about to do her A-level in English, and needed to do some extra reading. I said: ‘You have to read this book.’ It’s just such a fantastic story, and incredibly-character driven and vivid. It changed my life, that book, actually. It’s probably why I became an actor, really. I just couldn't believe how the characters just spoke to me and that I completely escaped into that world. It really sort of started my creative juices flowing. I found it an incredible form of escapism, and I identified with Scout as a child — a tomboy climbing trees and getting into trouble. That was me.

The last thing of note that you bought yourself

I've just bought four slow cookers for all the runners on my last job, because it's important they eat well — they've looked after me for four months, you know, bringing me hot tea and hot water bottles when I'm in the mud, and working their arses off. And I thought, well, how can I look after them? What I did buy for myself yesterday was a Pret chicken laksa soup, chilli crisps and a pot of mango. Can’t go wrong. Actually, I’ve also bought myself a new Saul Leiter photography book. He’s my favourite photographer and I buy myself a new photography book after every job finishes. It’s a treat to myself.

A possession you’d never sell

I would never sell my mum’s vase.

Your favourite painting

My favourite painting is by a Scottish artist called Alexander Miller, and it's called A Wee Backy Doon The Brae. It's a little boy on the back of a bike holding onto his dad's donkey coat with his little welly boots kicking out. His dad’s a miner and it's a silhouette of them from the back. I spotted this painting in a gallery in Stratford-upon-Avon when I was at the RSC there, and it reminded me of me and my dad, who was a Scottish man. There were always stories growing up that my father would try to cycle the hill up to our house from our tiny village on his bike with me in a seat at the back, and if he wasn't going fast enough, I would pinch him to go up faster. And so we'd always say that the painting was granddad and me, to our kids. I bought it — it was very expensive for me at the time — and I paid every month for it.

The music you work to

Every character has a different playlist. Music is really important to me. For Keeping Faith, I brought Amy Wadge on board to write music for that, because she was absolutely the right person. Before scenes, during scenes, I would have her in my ears, because it's like the soul of a character to me, music. It brings out different things, unlocks certain things, it's something that really influences me. I've just done Crow Girl now, and that's very much your Agnes Obel. My artist for Gone is London Grammar. They were played on repeat for Annie Cassidy.

The items you collect

Scripts. Oh and I love a teapot. I’m obsessed with tea.

The last podcast you listened to

It's something I really want to get into, actually — I genuinely don't have time — but I know the podcast I want to listen to, and that’s Kathy Burke’s podcast about death [Where There's A Will, There's A Wake].

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Well, you wouldn't believe how many Emily Blunt pictures get sent to me to sign. It’s become a bit of a joke in our house because so many people send Emily's picture to me. So I guess, aesthetically, possibly her — and she is a superb artist. But ultimately, I’ll go with my wonderful co-star Gabrielle Creevy, who I did The Guest with. We've got very similar backgrounds.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The hotel where we got married in Italy. I will never ever tell anybody which one it is.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

My husband.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The kids. We have a four-year-old who shouts: ‘Team! Team!’ every morning, like we are a basketball team. That gets me up.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

The fish and chips and bottle of champagne I had to myself after doing the London Marathon. It was absolutely exquisite.

The best present you’ve ever received

A run bath at the end of a hard working day.

Gone will premiere from Sunday 8 March on ITV and ITVX

‘I feel like most of the [literary] canon is depressing,’ says Julia Quinn. ‘I want to write really well-written entertainment.’ As the mind behind Bridgerton, I’d say she’s done just that. The author’s novels have been translated into 41 languages and been New York Times and Sunday Times bestsellers. Among them, of course, is the series which follows the aristocratic Bridgerton family, with a Netflix adaptation now in its fourth series.

She is jet-lagged when we speak. Just home from Sri Lanka and about to hop aboard another plane to the UK — such has been the success of Bridgerton, 26 years after Julia published the first installment, The Duke and I. ‘I wrote it in the year 2000 when I had a newborn,’ says Julia. ‘I’m an empty nester now.’

The last time she was in the UK she met two queens — Queen Camilla and Dame Jilly Cooper, the UK's queen of romance novels and author of The Rutshire Chronicles, who sadly died last year. ‘She was absolutely lovely,’ Julia says, ‘and honestly so delighted to hear somebody share an experience of reading one of her books. It clearly hadn’t gotten old for her.’ Julia, I think, is America’s answer to Jilly.

The latest series of Bridgerton is based on her novel An Offer from a Gentleman, which follows the second Bridgerton brother, Benedict, as he falls in love with a maid, Sophie Beckett. In the series, Sophie’s surname has been changed to Baek, to reflect her East Asian casting. Colour-conscious casting has been a large staple of the show, produced by Shondaland. ‘The casting is so good,’ says Julia. ‘I realise now that I picture all the characters like the actors… I'm also learning that it is very important to let everybody see themselves in a story about joy, about happiness, and I think that the way that the people at Shondaland managed to craft this universe that they built is brilliant. I never thought of doing it that way.’

‘Quinn’, just a stone's throw away from the ‘quill’ Bridgerton’s beloved Lady Whistledown uses, is Julia’s pen name. Julie Pottinger, now in her 50s, was born Julie Cotler in 1970 and raised in New England, in the USA. The middle child of three girls, Julia was a bookish child. Her first trip outside of America was in 1987, during her gap year, where she spent six-months at an all girls’ school in Gloucestershire, and sometimes visited Bath. She described it as ‘very romantic’. She attended Harvard University and achieved a bachelor’s degree in History of Art, but originally decided to be a doctor. It was two months into her studies at the Yale School of Medicine when she decided to drop out and commit to being a full-time author. She lives in Seattle, Washington, and is married with two grown-up children. Her husband, Paul Pottinger, is a specialist in infectious diseases.

Julia is outspoken when it comes to politics, but would never criticise other writers for not speaking out, as she knows it can jeopardise people’s careers in the creative industry. ‘I’m very fortunate. I'm in a position where, if thousands of people decide they don't like me because I speak out about something, I'm okay with them leaving.’ She adds: ‘[George Orwell novels] are basically happening in my country right now. I feel like I apologise to every foreigner I meet, and say: “I didn’t vote for this. It’s horrifying. Don’t come to the United States right now. It isn’t safe for you”.’

The author has just launched a book subscription service, JQ Editions, which supplies custom editions of historical romance novels selected by Julia, for anyone still desperate for their Bridgerton fix after bingeing the remainder of this series on Netflix.

Your aesthetic hero

You know, the first person who comes to mind is Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden. She seems like a truly kind person who's hard working and does her job and cares about people. I don't know why she comes up first, but I think she's kind of the model of what a monarchy could really be to support a country. My other hero is Gloria Steinem — who is one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I know. I've known her for many years, and when you hear her speak, you can't believe anybody would ever disagree with her, because she makes so much sense. She's just a remarkable person.

A book that has really inspired you

Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia by Mark Salzman. It’s a memoir and he actually grew up in my hometown. He’s a bit older than I am, so it's not quite the same experience, but that's really how I discovered it. It was just super inspiring, because it's a great book, but also for me, there's that extra connection of it being my hometown. I've given it to many, many people, and I don't think it's very well known.

The last thing of note that you bought yourself

My husband and I totally splurged and went on a National Geographic expedition cruise to Antarctica. I saw hundreds of thousands of penguins and it was just incredible. The ship was wonderful. It was a three week cruise and I've never done anything for three weeks before, travel wise — my husband took leave from work. Also, it's a very self-selecting group of people who want to go on a trip like that, so the people who were on the cruise were super interesting and nice as well. It was just great. I think I'm more about spending money on experiences than things. That's what I would rather do.

A possession you’d never sell

Again, I’m not so much about things, so it’s a little difficult.

The items you collect

Books are really the first thing that come to mind. I also always keep an eye out for memorabilia that says 7 Up on it. My grandfather owned a 7 Up bottling plant, so that was a big part of my childhood.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Pretty recently I saw Yayoi Kusama at the Seattle Art Museum — that’s the most recent one that really sticks in my memory.

The music you work to

It's funny, when I'm writing I often write in a café, and I have no trouble, whatever music they're playing. But if I'm working at home where there isn't ambient noise, I can only work to music without words, so I can't really explain that. I mean, I am a Swifty. I do like Taylor Swift a lot. I also love The Beatles — my tastes are really quite eclectic.

Your favourite painting

I mean, it’s like everybody’s favourite painting, but A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

The most recent podcast you listened to

I'm not a huge podcast listener. Actually, the last podcast that I listened to, to be completely frank, was The New York Times’ Book Review podcast interview with me. I just listened to that. Is that okay to say? In terms of the last one I listened to that doesn't have me in it, that would be Pod Save America — which is a political one with a lot of profanity.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Oh, I don't know. I can't do that one. I mean, then again, Anthony Fauci said he wanted Brad Pitt, and he got Brad Pitt playing him on Saturday Night Live, which was kind of awesome. I’ve never even been able to dream cast my books, like a lot of authors do, so I would never know how to cast me. There are two actresses that people say look like me. One is Mary-Louise Parker, although she's quite a bit taller, and then some people say Claire Foy, which I don't see, but which I take as a huge compliment.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

An eReader with a whole lot of books on it, and a power source.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Coffee. And, it’s funny, because I'm an empty nester now, so, what do I have to do? It was a tough adjustment for me to have them gone. I miss them a lot. You know, everyone's always saying: ‘Oh, my kids moved back in.’ I would love it if my kids moved back in. I really like my kids, but I don't think they want to. So that's okay. Now, every morning, each day is different. So what gets me up in the morning is probably checking the news, answering my emails.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Lanesborough in London. They do the Bridgerton high tea there and it is so lovely. There’s also a cat who lives there called Lilibet, I think she’s orange.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

Probably an Omakase sushi meal, you know, where you just get what you get. I think that's kind of fun — the surprise of it all — and I love sushi.

The best present you’ve ever received

My husband, for our 25th anniversary, gave me a necklace that had a pendant on it, which was actually like a little flask, and he put melted snow from the top of Mount Everest in. He had reached the summit in 2016 and he held on to it until five years later. I think he’s much more romantic than I am. But my kids got me really nice fuzzy North Face slippers this year, so I’m going to say they’re up there too.

The Deluxe Collector’s Editions of the first three Bridgerton titles – The Duke and I, The Viscount Who Loved Me and An Offer From A Gentleman – are published by Piatkus in hardback on 3 March

There are three Dame Zandra Rhodes’s in her central London apartment. The real one has her trademark pink hair, but it’s shorter now, cropped just under her ears. Her eyeshadow is electric blue and goes up to her eyebrows, which have been drawn on in a thin line. On the front of her jumper, which has rainbow sleeves (and which she designed), is a large Andrew Logan brooch: a mosaic of a woman’s face, made up of pink, red and grey shards of glass. This matches the (also large) mosaic flowers which dangle from each earlobe, and doesn’t match at all her socks which have smiley hearts on them and which sit inside a pair of bright orange trainers.

The other two Zandras are just as fabulous, but made of cardboard. ‘Well, I was dressed up and had my hair done by a hairdresser, and proper makeup, so I always look all right for those ones you see. So they stay there,’ she says, matter-of-factly. She has a remarkable youthfulness about her, despite her 85 years of age. Perhaps this is in part to do with her living situation (she has a lodger — a young fashion journalist).

The fashion and textiles designer needs no introduction, but I will write one all the same. She was born in Chatham, Kent, in 1940. Her mother was a fitter at The House of Worth in Paris and later an art professor — and one of Zandra’s biggest inspirations. Her father was a lorry driver. Zandra studied printed textile design at Medway College of Art before going on to further study at the Royal College of Art. She initially struggled to find work because her designs were deemed too ‘outrageous’ by many in the industry, so she set up Fulham Road Clothes Shop with the designer Sylvia Ayton in 1968. Eventually, the pair parted ways and Zandra released a solo collection, which was selected to feature in Vogue by Marit Allen. Zandra has designed clothes for Diana, Princess of Wales, Brian May and Freddie Mercury, who she remembers as being ‘a wonderful, shy person’. She is still designing and her dream is to design something for Beyoncé: ‘I think it would be quite a fabulous experience.’

She founded the Fashion and Textile Museum in London in 2003 and lives in an apartment above the colourful Bermondsey building. Her most impressive accolade may be that she has appeared as herself on both The Archers (‘I do write in occasionally and say that I think they should have more about farming’) and in Absolutely Fabulous. She has also been arrested, once, for growing cannabis in 1986. ‘I was taken away in a Black Maria. It wasn't very funny, really,’ she says of the experience. ‘I don’t think I’ve smoked since.’

The former president of Warner Brothers, Salah Hassanein, was her long-standing partner up until his death in 2019, aged 98. ‘I’ve got the memories of our relationship and I’ve got wonderful friends,’ she says.

A new exhibition of her work, Zandra Rhodes: A Life in Print, is on until May 10 at The Holburne in Bath. She will be in conversation at The Forum, also in Bath, on March 18.

Your aesthetic hero

I suppose, my mother. She was always the one who inspired me to do things and feel that the sky was the limit.

I used to say [about her dress sense]: ‘You look different from all the other mothers,’ and she was very exotic in lovely platform lizard shoes. I thought all the other mothers were old, but they weren't really — they just looked old.

She always wore lots of makeup. I suppose, really, I'm just sort of her extension, by accident. She just looked amazing.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London that was downstairs [at the Fashion and Textile Museum]. It was a fantastic exhibition, and they got so many fabulous things together. It really was an extraordinary club scene in the 1980s, and they captured it so incredibly.

That last thing of note that you bought yourself

My Adel Rootstein mannequins. They’re now amazing collector's items, and they look perfect showing my designs.

Your favourite painting

This one by Duggie Fields. That was the first painting I ever collected, and he had to sue me because I only had enough for the deposit — but I knew I had to have that painting. That’s my favourite one that I own. I paid him in the end, but in instalments. He came round with a lawyer to sue me, but then he was so impressed with how I had it in my room with curtains on either side that he became one of my closest friends. I still don’t think people treasure his paintings enough.

A possession you’d never sell

Probably my first collection.

A book that you found inspiring

Well, I don't read enough. Believe it or not. I like A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I think there are always new aspects to it that you don't think of, and he lived locally [in Rochester, Kent] a lot of the time.

The music that you work to

Oh god, you’ve got the wrong person. It’s Radio 4 for me. Compulsory listening in our studio, and when I go out they turn it down.

The last podcast you listened to

I listened to Fashion Neurosis because I was on it, with Bella Freud, but I basically only listen to Radio 4. I think if they're putting me on podcasts then I have a listen beforehand, to prepare.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Helena Bonham Carter would be quite nice.

What you'd take with you to a desert island

My sketchbook. Might as well keep drawing. Keep me busy.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Probably just continuing to work and designing.

The items you collect

I have a large collection of stones, and I’ve got an equally large collection of Andrew Logan jewellery that I pin up on a wall.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Il San Pietro in Positano, where I first stayed with my boyfriend, and which is that one with all the glass walls that look out onto the sea — very romantic.

I did also stay in a shepherd's hut in Cornwall. That was very nice.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

It was around this very table with Diana Vreeland, Larry Hagman and Andrew Logan. A total mix. It was very strange.

The best present you’ve ever received

My Issey Miyake bust. He gave me a signed bust. Kerry Taylor sold hers for quite a few thousand pounds, I think. It used to fit me.

Zandra Rhodes: A Life in Print, is on until May 10 at The Holburne in Bath. Zandra Rhodes in conversation at The Forum will be on March 18. Tickets are available now.

Although Carlos Acosta is leaning against the ballet barre at the front of the room in a pose that one might mistake for being casual, he is lithe and laser-focused as his eyes trace the young dancer’s movements across the floor. His head inclines slightly with each change of direction, perhaps in yearning. Dressed all in black, the director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet does not look his 52 years of age; in fact, most 52-year-olds would, I imagine, kill to look as good as he does. He is a sexy guy.

Carlos is retired, but he does not look ‘retired’ in any sense of the word, as he supervises the young dancers as they rehearse, tapping his Chelsea-boot clad feet in time with the music. As the music of Don Quixote swells, I can see him itching to run into the middle of the room and perform the powerful leaps and jumps of the routine he knows so well — it was, after all, a dance from this very ballet that won him the gold medal, aged just 16, at the international dance competition Prix de Lausanne in 1990, launching his career.

36 years later, the Cuban ballet dancer is no less desperate to dance. ‘[I miss it] all the time,’ he says. ‘I’m like: “Give me those tights, let me show you,” but of course I can’t [anymore, in the same way].’ Carlos has danced with the English National Ballet, the National Ballet of Cuba, the Houston Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre. He was with The Royal Ballet from 1998 to 2015. It is in Havana, in the 1970s, that he grew up, as one of 11 children living in a slum. Born to Dulce Maria Quesada and Pedro Acosta, now divorced, he was their youngest child. It was his truck-driver father that forced him away from breakdancing on the streets for the approval of gangs and into ballet classes, which he initially hated, but attended for the free lunch. He wanted to be a footballer originally, but ballet won out. ‘My father forced me. He chose this art for me, against my will, but I had a skill — I could apply movement to my body very quickly,’ he recalls. ‘The moment [I knew I wanted to do it for a career] was when I saw the professionals at the National Ballet of Cuba. They could jump and they could carry a ballerina with one hand. I remember thinking: 'That's a cool thing, I want to carry women with one hand as well.”’

Dance is what saved him. ‘My house was very complicated. My father, at some point, was in jail. My mother had a brain hemorrhage. In our home, my eldest sister was the one who cooked, and what she managed at 14 years old was kind of like a chemical experiment. You could call it rice, but that wasn't rice. It was hard, but I found, in ballet, a winning ticket.’ It is hard to overstate the extent of Carlos’s success in the dance world. He became to ballet what Freddy Mercury was to music — and it gave him confidence. ‘Growing up, I didn't think I was special. I was in a limbo. I didn't know what was going to be my life. But then every time I performed, I heard the applause. It made me feel: “Oh, I exist. I'm somebody.”’

Carlos received a CBE in 2014 for his services to ballet and created his own company of young talent from Cuba in 2016 called Acosta Danza. A film of his life, which he starred in, titled Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story, premiered in 2018 and he has written two books: his autobiography, No Way Home, and a novel, Pig’s Foot, which the Guardian deemed ‘elegant and seductive’. He joined Birmingham Royal Ballet as its director in 2020. It is his first ‘non-freelance’ job, he tells me. He is married to Charlotte Holland, a writer and a former model who, he told The Times in 2016, he ‘tried to persuade ... to go out with [him] for a year’. It must have worked, as together they share three daughters: a 14-year-old and nine-year-old twins. His sparsely decorated office features a monthly calendar, filled with red stickers and various events, a bottle of Bollinger next to his honorary degree from the University of Birmingham, and a card from his children, presumably written while he was on tour. In pastel colours is scrawled: ‘Daddy come back soon’.

Alas, being on the road is a big part of Carlos’s career, although less so than when he was a full-time dancer. He’s delighted that the Birmingham company's production of Don Quixote and his company Acosta Danza’s Carmen will be going on tour. It is this that underscores what brought him to Birmingham Royal Ballet in the first place — a desire to make great dance accessible to all in the UK. ‘For the nation’s perspective, it’s great — so that everything is not London-centric. The Arts play a very important role in education, and it's always great that, instead of people waiting to come to places where art is happening, art goes to the people.’ He adds: ‘In the case of Acosta Danza, we are focusing on mid-scale theatres which, for instance, cannot normally afford, say, a production of The Nutcracker, because they are so tiny. I want to tap into that market, as Acosta is a small company, and it’s more mainstream.’

Alongside overseeing these rehearsals, the ‘retired’ dancer is gearing up to perform at the Royal Opera House this summer. ‘I'm really looking forward to performing and being on stage again,’ he tells me, excitedly. ‘I see [dancing] differently now. I try to choose a repertory that I know I can still deliver. I am not trying to do Romeo or something like that, I might break,’ he says, referencing the famously challenging ballet role. I ask why he doesn’t stop altogether: most ballet dancers are not still dancing in their fifties, after all. ‘Why would I have to disappear completely?’ comes the reply. ‘I don’t believe in that. I think that we are missing out on dancers, like myself, that have had an entire life in ballet. You have a presence — the way you walk, the way that you hold yourself, the way that you control the space. When you get to my age, you master that more than those who are still beginning.’ He adds: ‘I think it's a misstatement — that sense that when you pass a certain age, you're not relevant anymore. That's nonsense.’ It is clear that Carlos just can’t keep away from the stage, no matter how hard he tries (not that he is trying particularly hard). I think, happily, it will be a long time still before he hangs up his ballet shoes for good.

Your aesthetic hero

I am a very big fan of Mikhail Baryshnikov, because I think if you look at his career and the way that he conducts himself, I am a lot like him. He did it all. He directed, he became this incredible dancer, he did Broadway and then he became a contemporary dancer. Then came acting, the guitar, his photography and, ultimately, he created his own centre in New York. I mean, he kept evolving and evolving and at 78 is still relevant, and doing stuff — and that’s what I want to do.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

A while back I saw an exhibition of a friend called Alejandro Pinedo, which impressed me. I really recommend it — really beautiful, large format painting, very abstract but always very pleasing to the eye, colourful, and it's all about Cuba. He's Cuban, so Cuba is all there, you know, the colour of the sea and the clouds and the blue sky, and so it's something that I instantly connect with and obviously the connection that I have with him as well helps.

A possession you’d never sell

I would sell anything if I needed to. It doesn’t really matter. Things come and go — that’s not a problem. There's something I'm working on now that I will really want to pass on to my kids, though. Particularly, if I was still around, I would never sell, but if they wanted or needed to sell it eventually, then it would be up to them. I can't say what it is yet.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I’m about to buy a suit. That is going to be significant, but I haven’t bought it yet.

Your favourite painting

I don’t have a favorite painting as such. I admire Francis Bacon a lot, but not to have on my wall, of course. I admire the paintings of my fellow Cuban Wifredo Lam, as well. I like Dalí too.

A book that you have found inspiring

At the moment I am reading a book by Ada Ferrer which is called Cuba: An American History. It won a Pulitzer award and it’s basically the history of Cuba in the context of America as a country, how the two nations have been — from way, way back — intertwined and working together. It's incredible to think about all these many details that we don't even nowadays know. Like, I didn't know, for instance, that the decisive fight that gave America the independence from the Brits in Yorktown, it only was possible because of fundraising that they did in Havana. Havana was very wealthy at the time. I find it very inspiring and interesting, full of detail. No wonder it won a Pulitzer.

The music that you work to

In my free time I don’t tend to put on any music. If I'm going to choreograph Carmen, or whatever, I stick to the music over and over again. At the moment, I'm working on a creation: The Maiden of Venice. I want to have my own trademark and my own sort of input into this classic, so therefore I hear the music a lot, over and over and over. But when I was writing, I didn't put music on in the background for inspiration. I like silence. It keeps me focused.

The last podcast you listened to

I just flip through them. Joe Rogan sometimes gets really interesting people on, but I don’t listen to them from beginning to end. Obviously, politics — sometimes you need to follow a little bit, because the world is changing. And every day it changes. And you know, I need to know what’s going to happen in Cuba: I have my sister in Cuba, and my company.

What you’d take to a desert island

Either music or something to play music on, and in the music would be memories of my parents and the people that I love, and also the life that I'm living now. So I think music gives you so many choices. Also music gives you the opportunity to dance.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Well, to be pragmatic nowadays, it's just school runs, or a train to whatever destination I need to go to that day. And in terms of coffee, I fluctuate. Lately I've been having a glass of water with lime, you know, for the immune system and everything, but sometimes I do have my cappuccino or something. It depends. I try not to be completely consistent in sticking to one thing, but to break habits.

The items you collect

I have a small collection of classic cars in Havana. It's small, only four, but they're really great. I love them because they are an old reminder of a time that is long gone.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

[A film of Carlos’s life, Yuli: The Carlos Acosta Story, has already been made. In it, for many scenes, Carlos played himself.] Obviously, you just have to trust the director. I mean, there's always a consideration, because it's my life and I had to be okay with, for example, who's going to represent my father. But, you sort of have to trust the team that they know what they're doing. Ultimately, it's a film of my life, not a documentary. In one of the early scripts, somebody wrote something that I couldn't believe, because it was so exaggerated. People were smoking, and I had spies from Cuba following me around. I said: ‘That didn't happen.’ Anyway, I'm very happy about the way the movie turned out. It has such integrity and also artistic values.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I am going to have to pass — I don’t remember the names!

The most memorable meal you’ve eaten

You know, everything is about family [for me]. I miss my parents a lot, and I miss the old days when my parents were around and everybody, including my sister, was alive. These meals were rice, beans — nothing fancy — maybe an egg fried on top, with plantain, something like that. My mother would cook, and everybody was around having a good time. It's more about what that meal brings to my memory than the actual meal itself.

The best present you’ve ever received

My kids. That relationship, the bond — everything that I do is for them.

Acosta Danza’s UK tour of ‘Carmen’ will open at Richmond Theatre (April 8-11 ) before touring to Aylesbury Waterside (April 15-18), Grand Opera House, Manchester (April 22-25), Brighton Theatre Royal (April 29-May 2) and finally New Victoria Theatre Working (May 6-9).

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s tour of ‘Don Quixote’ opens at Birmingham Hippodrome on February 12. The production will then tour to The Lowry, Salford (5 -7 March), Plymouth Theatre Royal (18-21 March), Mayflower Theatre, Southampton (15-18 April) and London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre (23-25 April).

Caroline Avedon is dressed like a glamorous New York cowboy at the exhibition she has curated at the Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill in London. She wears a black leather fringed jacket, snakeskin cowboy boots, gold jewellery and a curtain of dark pin-straight hair. A gold ‘C’ hangs from a chain around her neck, as if to remind her of who she is. One small blue hoop earring is the only thing I can spot on her person that isn’t meticulously curated to fit a sleek, mature aesthetic. Curating, after all, is a big part of Caroline’s job, as the curator and archivist at the Richard Avedon Foundation, which continues to showcase the work of her grandfather, the famous photographer.

Avedon is perhaps best known for his glamorous fashion shots for Harper's Bazaar, Elle and Vogue, but 'Facing West' (until March 14) is entirely different. The exhibition is a selection of original work from 'In the American West', a series of portraits of working-class individuals taken by Avedon in the 1970s and 1980s; beautiful, devastating and intense snapshots of a real America. They were arranged by Caroline so that the darker images are viewed first. One of her favourites is an image of BJ Van Fleet, a shotgun toting nine-year-old who stares stubbornly down the lens. Caroline says it sums up the state of the USA today.

Avedon died when she was five, but Caroline still has ‘incredibly vivid’ memories of him. It wasn’t until he passed away, however, that she realised the enormity of his success. To her, ‘he was just Grandpa Dick’. Shortly after his death, she was watching TV when she saw his obituary on CNN and innocently asked her father: ‘Why is grandpa on the TV?’ Aged five, she didn’t even know what his legacy was — now, aged 26, her life is dedicated to preserving it.

As a child, she wanted to be a marine biologist, as she grew up beside the ocean in Long Island, in the Hamptons. ‘That evolved and moved on as I grew up, but still not to anything artistic,’ she recounts, although she always had a love of dancing. ‘I wanted to be a lawyer. I’ve always been interested in politics and helping people and I am quite skilled at winning an argument,’ she says. Caroline is headstrong; a necessary trait to deter potential nepo baby allegations. After all, it can’t be easy to have the same surname as the company that pays your bills (her mother is the CEO of the foundation, and her brother, Matthew, also works there). After being put off by the idea of ‘being a woman in Washington DC at that time,’ Caroline abandoned her dreams of politics and law and worked in fashion for a spell (which she didn’t like) before asking her mother for a bit of temporary work. Four and a half years later, she ‘couldn’t imagine doing anything else’.

Caroline admits she was cautious at the start. ‘I was a little concerned that, especially for the two non-family members [that work for the foundation], that I might be perceived as, kind of…’ she trails off. ‘I don't know much about art. I didn't know much about art at the time. I didn't study art, and I wasn't exactly qualified. I taught myself a lot, and I read and took courses, but yeah, there's always the looming nepo baby thing — especially in America. People like to talk about that. I don't consider myself that at all, especially because it's a very niche environment.’

She explains: ‘I always try to have the hardest work ethic I can have at the foundation [...] reminding myself, and other people, that this is something I’m very passionate about, not just a “bailout”.’ I believe her. After all, her dad, although he is the President of the board, has other work to keep him occupied. Currently he is the Dalai Lama's authorised biographer, Caroline tells me, casually, without much further detail. For her, family is everything. ‘I think one of the coolest things I realised right off the bat [at the foundation] is that I had everything I could ever want to know about my family at my fingertips. Every family photo, every correspondence, every voice recording. I have learned so much about my history, my grandparents’ history, my great-grandparents, my dad, over the years and I wouldn't trade that for the world.’ For many years, Caroline couldn’t listen to an audio or video recording of Avedon. ‘It would stop my heart. I would just start to cry and slam the computer. It was an incredible jerk reaction,’ she says. ‘I just couldn't do it. It made me incredibly emotional. But now I think I've healed that part of myself by working at the foundation, because I don't remember him as ‘my dead grandpa’, now I remember him as this incredible, accomplished person.’

She describes him as ‘incredibly energetic, charismatic, vivacious and outgoing,’ without ‘an ounce of fear’. ‘He would walk into a room and light it up, for better or for worse — that is how I would describe him.’ In terms of likenesses, she thinks they share the same stubbornness as well as social temperament: ‘I'm an extroverted introvert, I would say, and I think there was a little bit of that in him as well. I think he was a smidge more outgoing than me.’ The job has changed how she sees the world, and herself. ‘It's kind of shifted my focus when I see people on the street,’ she explains. ‘For instance, instead of looking passively, I noticed little features about people that I definitely did not do before this job. I am always looking for something interesting about someone: what makes them unique, what's different about them.’ When it comes to having her own photo taken, things have changed too. ‘Loved it as a child,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind it now, but with social media and things, I’m much more critical of my appearance, which is sad [...] I think the older I'm getting, unfortunately, the more aware I am of my appearance and how I want to look, and so it's a double edged sword. I like the attention sometimes, and I also hate it sometimes because of how I'm feeling that day. I think, honestly, that's just the experience of being a woman.’

Caroline shows me around the exhibition, lovingly pointing out specific details of each portrait that tell a bit of the subject's story, and speaking as if she has known them all her life. The things Caroline admires so much about her grandfather’s art: the way he captured someone's clumsily applied makeup, the dirt flecked across their cheeks, a rip in their clothing or their uneven skin tone — essentially the things that make them look unique — are the imperfections she cannot abide in a photograph of herself. It’s a strange irony, I think. It’s a shame Richard isn’t around to take her photograph today. Through his lens, I am sure she’d be able to see things differently.

Your favourite painting

It's so tricky. This is a really hard question, and I don't know if I can hone in on one per se. I love romanticism in general. I love Monet a lot, but I don't think I could pick one, and I know that's kind of a bad answer, but I tend to gravitate towards landscape images, oceans in particular.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I have a bit of a shopping problem. I am a very large Manolo Blahnik collector, and my most recent pair of Manolos that I bought myself for Christmas are probably my last purchase. My birthday is next week, so we'll see what I come up with for that. I buy a lot of shoes.

Your aesthetic hero

Of course I love my grandfather, but I would say Lauren Hutton has been an obsession of mine. I really love her, and her aesthetic. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen — love them — and Zoë Kravitz, she’s incredibly unique.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

This is a hard question. I go to see a lot of art. I love art and photography, but I will selfishly say Avedon 100 was an incredible accomplishment. That was the first big project I worked on at the foundation. It was such a journey and humongous, and it was incredibly rewarding. So I would say that, as it was just so unique, and nothing, I think, has been done like it. To have been a part of that, I am so grateful.

A book you found inspiring

This is a weird answer. I don’t know if inspiring is the right word to describe it, but my favourite book of all time is The Great Gatsby. I’ve read that book, I think, about 13 times, and I travel with it. I love how beautifully heartbreaking it is. ​I think it is such a sad story, but a good sad story — if that makes any sense? I love his writing in particular. I've read a few of his books. I just think it's something I can never put down, and I think that's the best feeling in a book. The whole romanticism and utopian energy of Jay Gatsby and how it all comes crashing down I think is an incredible life lesson also, and I took a lot from it in my own life: that you can be so at the top of everything and feel like you're getting the world, and the next day it all goes away. I also find that Daisy Buchanan is one of the biggest villains of all time in fiction. She just grinds my gears in a good way. I have my grandpa’s copy of it with his notes in. It’s really cool, but they’re kind of hard to understand. I'm pretty sure, in the front cover, it says Heathrow and the time of a flight he took.

A possession you would never sell

My watch was grandpa's. He was a tiny man, hence why it fits my wrist. I would never even think about selling it. I honestly would never sell anything that was my grandfather's or my grandmother's.

The music that you work to

Mainly rap — it was probably the first music I was introduced to by my brothers. A lot of classic rock too. I love The Beatles, I love The Rolling Stones, I love The Grateful Dead and Rage Against the Machine, then I love jazz music, too. I'm a huge fan of Leo Armstrong, and house music. I will listen to almost anything. The one thing I don't like to listen to, because I grew up with it as background noise every day in my life with my father, is classical music — other than The Nutcracker, I could listen to the soundtrack of that all day long.

The last podcast you listened to

I am not the biggest podcast person, but I adore Amy Poehler's podcast. She is one of my favourite people on this planet. Parks and Recreation is my favourite TV show of all time, and I just think she's a great interviewer and keeps it funny and light. And I love the people that she's had on. It's the one podcast I actually sit down and listen to, and watch.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Emma Roberts. She is the one person that I ever get told that I look like physically. She actually lives for periods of time near me, and her sister I grew up with. I don’t know her, but she’s fantastic, and I think she would play me well. I'd be honoured to be played by her.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

This is a really dumb answer, but water. I am a water fiend. The idea of even surviving without water doesn’t work for me.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

A very obnoxious alarm. I have to do the really awful one [she imitates the sound of a military claxon]. It's funny, because I'm not a good sleeper. I don't sleep much, but I have a really hard time waking up. When that alarm goes off for the office in the morning, I'm like: ‘Noooo!’ I love my bed. My bed and I are best friends. But, on a weekend, I would say a true New York bacon, egg and cheese and a vanilla ice latte.

The items you collect

Shoes. I’m fascinated by them. I think they’re beautiful. I've gotten to a point where I'm a collector of them so much that I want the weird ones. I want the — I don't want to say ugly, because I think they're beautiful — but you know the really wacky ones? I have a bunch of pony hair and animal print shoes. Oh, and jackets and coats — vintage jackets and coats is another one. And, shout out to a British company, I am about to be 27 but I'm obsessed with Jellycats.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Round Hill hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I will die there, I will be buried there, I will live there. That's a family story, actually. Grandpa was very best friends with John Pringle, who's British and who founded Round Hill in Montego Bay in 1952, if I'm not mistaken. My family's been going there since 1952 and my dad grew up there for weeks and months on end. He's been going his whole life and I went for the first time when I was about eight, fell in love with it, and now it's my favorite place in the world. I can't imagine going anywhere else.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

I've had some really great jerk chicken in Jamaica, that’s memorable for me. I really enjoy cooking and I make a mean chicken cutlet. There's so many memories associated with that type of food. My mom's Italian, so I've been eating Italian food my whole life. I perfected my recipe in college and made it for all my friends. It’s all my boyfriend will eat.

The best present you’ve ever received

I am fortunate enough to have received a lot of great gifts. The one that stands out the most to me is, after my grandpa passed away, we got a package in the mail and it was a blanket with a giant dog head on it that my grandpa had made for me, and it wasn't finished until after he passed. I love dogs and I’ve always loved dogs. It actually arrived about three weeks after he had passed away, which is beautiful and obviously gut wrenching at the same time. That's probably the best present I've ever received, just because of the sentimental value of it. It sits in my bedroom in my parents' house.

Richard Avedon: Facing West is at Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill in London until March 14.

For Cece Fein-Hughes, what began in a bedroom in her parent’s house ended up on the fingers of Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi and Taylor Swift. ‘We've never experienced anything like it,’ she recalls, of the bespoke order that came in last year for the pop superstar. Swift was introduced to Cece’s jewellery by the supermodel Gigi Hadid, who gifted the singer, and Kendall Jenner, bespoke pieces of jewellery. Swift’s tabby cat, Benjamin Button, was the centerpiece of a signet ring, surrounded by pearls, two brilliant cut diamonds, a flaming heart and a spear-pierced one with the number 87 inside — a reference to her fiance Travis Kelce's jersey number for the Kansas City Chiefs. For Robbie and Elordi, Cece Jewellery was chosen to commemorate the time they spent together filming Emerald Fennell’s new raunchy adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Robbie had matching signet rings made that feature a pair of skeletons embracing, with the words 'Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same’ from the Emily Brontë novel. 'It was such a special request to create these matching rings [...] The skeletons are positioned exactly as they appear on the iconic film poster, entwined with roses and thorns, representing passion, beauty, and heartbreak,' Cece says.

The key to Cece Jewellery’s success may be that the business is a close-knit family affair. ‘My parents run their own construction company, and it’s really helpful to have guidance. My mum’s a designer, so she designs with me, and my dad leads the charge on the business,’ Cece says. In fact, case in point, as I am interviewing Cece in her west London office — ‘I’m a serious west Londoner. I can’t leave,’ she says — her mum pops in, as if on cue. She does this, Cece says, pretty much once a day.

Bubbly, warm and full of passion for her designs, time spent with Cece passes quickly, and with much laughter involved. Growing up, she didn’t imagine that she’d be a designer, but she was very much ‘a jewellery kid’. ‘I was like a little magpie. I'd get anything that was sparkling,’ she says. Her father was a deep sea diver — ‘he has all these old school tattoos, which is very much a theme that runs my designs’ — while her mother stayed at home. Cece has around eight small tattoos herself (she can’t remember exactly how many), of which one is a snake. Despite a genuine fear of the reptile, she is ‘obsessed with them’ and they feature a lot in her jewellery, though she’d ‘never be in a room with’ one. This kind of contradiction features a lot in her work — her seemingly girlish pieces tend to have a rather Gothic twist. For as many floral Cece Jewellery designs there are, they are an equally prevalent number that feature something more macabre. Many of her heart designs are bleeding, or pierced by an arrow. Plenty feature skeletons, perhaps reflecting Cece's own tattoo of a skull and crossbones: ‘It’s a good reminder that we’re all going to die,’ she says, with a light-hearted giggle.

She describes her upbringing as ‘hippie and wild’. ‘There were no rules. I actually asked my parents to have rules. I was like: ‘Dad, can you tell us to take our shoes off?’ Because my school friends did that.’ She grew up in Devon with an older brother and a younger sister. ‘It was all very whimsical and witchy. My mum and my granny went to Full Moon meetings. It was this very earthy upbringing. They were also creative and always encouraged me to draw and paint and walk on the moors and look at spider webs and stuff, so that sort of fueled my passion for creativity.’

Her business, despite ‘moving to London and bringing in a bit of the bling’ aims to capture the whimsy of her upbringing. Originally, she studied History of Art at university then completed internships at Christie’s and Sotheby's, before realising that she hated working at a desk. ‘I was itching to do something with my hands, so I did a short jewellery making course in Hatton Garden, completely randomly, and I discovered gold — and how magical it was.’

‘I didn't ever think I'd have a business,’ Cece says, candidly. ‘I didn't think I'd ever have a job. I was happy just to make a few little rings here and there. My deep passion is in design. When I design for a new collection, that's when I'm happiest.’

It is the enamel on her rings that makes them unique. Cece had studied the jewellery craft for a while before she came across enamel. ‘It was sort of — and I hate this term — a “eureka” moment, because it pulls in my love of history of art, which is paintings, but also my love of storytelling, and this kind of fairytale element you can wear.’

She has a particular love of the signet ring: ‘It’s brilliant because it's so British. It definitely has connotations of Eton, but I kind of love flipping that on its head a bit — wearing it on a different finger, stacking it up, painting crazy things on the signet ring. We've done paintings that are so un-proper, for lack of a better word.’ She describes her designs as ‘playful, fun and silly,’ complete with images that ‘makes you look twice’. Cece recently painted a bespoke ring where the customer had dreamt that they were a lion and had defeated an alligator in a battle to the death. ‘They said they needed it painted on a ring because it means something,’ she recalls.

‘Was this customer a man?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ Cece says.

All this discussion of rings leads me to my most burning question for the married jewellery designer — the answer to which has, up until this point, been obscured by an inconsiderately clutched cup of tea. What kind of wedding ring does a ring designer wear? The answer is: more than one. She has three separate pieces on her ring finger. Dan, her husband, gifted her the first — her engagement ring — she made herself the second (‘because I really wanted more diamonds’) and the third is a simple wedding band. ‘I wanted something quite simple for us to exchange on the day, because I think there's something symbolic to that.’ Her husband wasn’t stressed when it came to choosing her engagement ring because he had been thoroughly briefed by Cece in the 10 years prior, she says. He also wanted to choose entirely by himself. She met him in the universal place where many great romances begin: on a dance floor while on a university night out.

The pair are a power duo: Dan also runs his own business in tech. ‘It's a really confusing world, and it's the complete opposite world that I work in,’ Cece says. He is not a natural jewellery wearer, but the designer won him around with a bespoke signet ring, featuring an illustration of a crane on one leg to symbolise balance. She was, he says, her ‘most difficult customer’. They share a ‘bossy and princess-y’ tabby cat called Lucky.

While there is plenty of joy at Cece Jewellery HQ, the increase in the price of gold recently has hit her business hard. ‘It’s really stressful. My finance team is not having a good time,’ she says. ‘We are going to increase our prices soon. We have to. It's crazy how much gold has gone up even in the last couple of months. It's really, really upsetting because it just suddenly cuts out a whole market of people for fine jewellery, but there's also nothing we can do because we are selling rings — we have to make a profit.’ So, would she ever switch to a different material? She bristles as that thought.

‘No. I can’t. I have to have the best of the best, because it would be doing enamel a disservice to use any lower carat gold or synthetic diamonds. It's such an ancient, beautiful craft that takes so many years of learning how to do it, and so few people in the world know how to do it. It's like treasured art, so we need to make sure it's on the best canvas.’

Your aesthetic hero

There’s this one scene in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, and it’s where Claire Danes [Juliet] is looking through the fish tank, and the song ‘I’m Kissing You’ [by Des'ree] is playing. That’s my aesthetic hero. I think there's something so innocent and ethereal and magical about that scene and what she's wearing, but there's also an undertone of tragedy, which I love. I've been playing that scene over and over again for the last couple of months. I used that scene as my inspiration for our next collection.

A book you found inspiring

I wanted to say something really smart, but I’m actually going to say the truth. I was addicted to Romantasy for a whole year. I have almost a graveyard of Romantasy books in my house, and it’s got to be Fourth Wing [by Rebecca Yarros]. It’s not educational, but it is such delicious escapism, and I’m all about escapism and storytelling. I actually couldn’t talk to my husband for a whole weekend [because I was reading it].

The music you work to

I listen to really depressing music. I have to feel heartbroken and sad. And at the moment, it's classical, but kind of sad-classical. It ebbs and flows, I just have to transport myself back to Devon, and that's the way I do it. You have to light the candles, you need a nice, peaceful space.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

So I've obviously been to the Marie Antoinette one that's been huge, and the Cartier one [both recently at the V&A Museum], and I can’t decide between the two… I'd probably have to say Cartier, just because seeing the journey of Cartier from start to finish, and ending with the tiaras — it was just the most incredible old glamour, and it felt so inspiring.

What you’d take to a desert island

Obviously my husband and my cat, but mainly my mum, because I’m such a baby, and I think I’m getting more of a baby as I get older, really. I need my mum. I think I call her about five times a day and I see her every day, as long as she comes into the office (she lives around the corner). But yeah, I need my mum, always.

The last podcast you listened to

I’m actually not a podcast girl so, none. I don’t really commute so I don’t really have time to listen to podcasts — it’s a 10-minute walk.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Lucky, my cat, and just a coffee in bed, I can’t do anything else until I’ve had that. I have black coffee, but the cup has to be three quarters full, and I take it with sugar.

The items you collect

I do have a collection of crystals, which is definitely a nod to my granny. I have one my brother gave me for something to do with health, because once I was really ill, and I feel like that's the sweetest thing ever, because he's a big rock-and-roll dude with a bald head and loads of tattoos. It was so sweet. I've also got one that me and Dan got in Sri Lanka. I've got crystals from all over the world. It’s a meaningful little shrine of crystals.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I am making a plate wall at my house at the moment. I’ve bought these Astier De Villatte plates, which are extremely expensive and which you would never use as they’re so smashable — but they have paintings on them. One has a crow, another has a rose. It’s quite eccentric and it’s for my new kitchen. I’m really excited to put it all up, I just don’t know how.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Grand Hotel Son Net in Mallorca. We went last year and it’s one of those hotels where you don’t leave until you go to your returning flight, and because we both run our own businesses, sometimes we need a holiday where you literally don't do anything. It was actually heaven.

Your favourite painting

I feel like with this one, I thought about it, and it has to be this. I’m not trying to bring in all my jewellery collections, but it's just what I think about. It's The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, because our last collection was inspired by that painting. Obviously it's a big triptych, and we created triptych pendants. I just love paintings where the closer you look, the more you discover. The allegory of, like: ‘Oh, that looks beautiful,’ and then you look closer, and it's like a skull or something dying.

The most memorable meal you've eaten

Le Vin Perdu, in Ashburton, Devon. We went over Christmas, and we were all amazed at how delicious it was. It's such a cute little glittery, candle-lit restaurant. We actually did our wedding drinks the night before there, and it was a set menu, and literally, every single plate was left empty. And it was great and we were all really happy. It was delicious Italian.

Who would play you in a film of your life

This is really hard. I actually can’t answer — you guys can. [The rest of us in the room agree she looks quite a lot like Dua Lipa, who has acted twice, a.) not very well, in the comedy film Argylle which is about a spy and a cat, and b.) slightly better in the film Barbie.]

The best present you’ve ever received

It’s a really obvious one, but when Dan proposed I literally screamed. I was so happy. It was a shocking surprise because I thought maybe it wasn’t going to happen. It was very much that time when everyone's maybe getting engaged, maybe not, and everyone’s a bit panicky and stressed.

A possession you'd never sell

A pendant that I made for my aunties, uncles and me. It's where we scattered my granny's ashes in Devon, we have this very special tor on Dartmoor — it's basically a hill with a pile of rocks on top — and it was almost like our family's pilgrimage. We'd go up it multiple times a year, and that's where we scattered her ashes and then laid down little pink blossoms. So I painted in enamel the little rock, a little pink blossom, and then it's got her initials on the back, which is very sweet. Because we don't have a tombstone, it's very untraditional. We didn't even have a funeral. So it's nice to have something that we have from that moment.

Find out more about Cece Jewellery on their website.

Two things quickly become clear about Monica Galetti. The first is that she has an incredibly soft maternal side to her. The second is that, despite this, I wouldn’t want to cross her. The chef has had to be tough in a competitive industry where she has often been the only woman, and person of colour, in a kitchen. Before MasterChef came calling, the Samoan chef was the owner of Mere, the fine-dining restaurant in London’s swanky Fitzrovia, along with her sommelier husband David Galetti. She was previously a senior sous-chef at Le Gavroche, Michel Roux Jr’s two Michelin star offering, and she has appeared on our screens on MasterChef: The Professionals, and Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby, which she co-hosts with Rob Rinder.

‘I had such a free childhood. I loved it,’ says the chef, who was born Monica Fa‘afiti in Upolu and initially raised by two of her aunts, as her mother worked in New Zealand. With two older brothers and a younger brother and sister, as well as many cousins, she was never bored. ‘I was a young child growing up in the Pacific islands. It was very family orientated,’ she recalls. ‘I had lots of children to play with, whatever that was — running into the plantation to pick guavas, for example. Constantly, I got caught sitting in a cocoa tree. The pods where you make chocolate from are such a delicious fruit. I'd sit in the tree and eat the cocoa pods, and then get smacked, because I'd be told that I'd get a sore stomach if I ate too many.’ Perhaps this is where her love of quality ingredients began. ‘Fresh produce was just a way of life for us growing up,’ Monica says.

Samoan culture meant she regularly attended Sunday school, where there would always be prizes for tasks like memorizing Bible passages. She credits this for both her religious beliefs and her competitive streak. ‘I used to win a lot of the prizes there,’ Monica says. Growing up, her father was a mechanic and her mother worked for a telecom company. When she was around eight years old she moved to New Zealand to be with her parents, as her family wanted the children to have better schooling and more opportunities. Monica lived first in Auckland, then in Wellington, attending Naenae College and then the Central Institute of Technology in Upper Hutt, where she began her training as a young chef. ‘It was frightening,’ she says, of the move. ‘For the first time, I had to wear long sleeves, and I remember putting on a turtleneck for the first time and just itching all over. I was not used to wearing clothing like that. I found it very cold there, compared to Samoa, and then, of course, I had to learn to speak English as well. It was a whole new thing.’ The biggest change, however, was edible. ‘The food was very different too. You had to buy fruit, which I thought was very strange, as opposed to just picking pineapples and mangoes off the tree when they were ready.’

It was a diploma in hospitality that sparked her passion for cooking. ‘You had to spend the first part of training as a chef in the kitchen, and when I first walked into the kitchen I knew that was what I was going to do forever, from that day.’ Monica discovered a knack for competitive cooking, then she was away, representing New Zealand in cooking competitions internationally. That is how she first came to Europe. ‘I fell in love with London,’ she recalls. At the age of 23, she made the move to live there. ‘I left in 1999 to come to the UK for what was meant to be a year at the most, and it’s been 26 years now.’

Although she had been a chef de partie in New Zealand, she went back to being a commis (or junior) chef to join the esteemed French restaurant Le Gavroche. ‘I was willing to do that. I lived and breathed the kitchen life. My colleagues were my best friends,’ she says. Eventually she rose to the position of senior sous chef, and was the first woman to hold such a position at the restaurant. This is also where she met her French husband, David, who was the restaurant's head sommelier. ‘He fell in love with me straight away,’ Monica says, laughing. ‘I think in an establishment like that, it's just so full on, you probably wouldn't meet anyone otherwise, so it's just wonderful that I had someone who understood the hours that we worked, because he was in the same industry. They share one daughter. ‘She’s at university now, so I’m missing her,’ Monica says. ‘It's the hardest thing that I wasn't prepared for. I knew it was going to be hard, and I was dreading her leaving to go to university, but the hardest thing was after we had dropped her off. I remember my husband and I leaving and walking down the street and literally feeling like something had broken in me, that I was leaving a part of myself behind. I can’t wait for her to come home so that I can cuddle her to the point where she just gets so fed up with me. Now I only realize what I put my own parents through,’ she pauses, before reminding me: ‘Don’t forget to call your mum.’

MasterChef:The Professionals came about in 2009, as the casting team wanted someone who had a good rapport with Michel Roux on the show. ‘He’s like my older brother,’ she says. Fame, however, was not a natural calling. ‘I thought I was going to be sick. I was very nervous about it. I didn't know anything and I had no training to do any television work. They just said to be myself, and I only knew how to be a chef,’ she recalls. She was very direct with contestants when she gave them feedback, like she would be in a real kitchen, and some viewers nicknamed her ‘Nasty Monica’. ‘It is what it is,’ she says of the time. ‘I hadn’t planned on doing any television at all, it was always about being a chef first and foremost.’

She’s now working with Itsu, the British, east-asian inspired fast food chain, on their new noodle pots. ‘I did tell them I wasn’t a fan of the product the way it was,’ she says bluntly, before describing how she worked with the chain to re-make the product from scratch. ‘For me to do something, it has to be done properly,’ she clarifies, with a dose of that innate gritty Monica-ness that has been a staple of her career. She is also currently working on the board of the charity restaurant, 130 Primrose, which is about to launch in Primrose Hill and will help to support the homeless, and she is consulting with a restaurant called Tasi that's opening in Samoa, at Monalei Villas in Apia. ‘I'd always wanted to give back to my people. I’ve lived abroad for so long and done great things abroad,’ she says, with a glint of homesickness. ‘The fact is that I can take some of that knowledge back to Samoa now — because I know how difficult it is to actually try and get that skill level there.’

Your aesthetic hero

I think now, at this particular age, I tend to reflect back on my parents quite a bit, as my food heroes. The fact that everything was just so simple and delicious and fresh growing up, and that was because they knew nothing else. They've taught me that.

A book you’ve found inspiring

The book I found most inspiring, and literally only just completed reading for the first time in English, has been the Bible. I finished it two days ago. Samoan culture is always based around churches, but I used to go to a Samoan church that was very strict, and I kind of lost my connection to the church in my teens, and drifted away from it. So I’ve always said I’m a Christian, but I never really knew what that meant until maybe last year, and now I'm fully in.

The music that you work to

I love having music on the go, but the playlist that we have depends on who's in the kitchen. You always hear something like: ‘Alexa, put Smooth Radio on,’ if my daughter's not got rock music going, so it’s sort of a happy medium for everyone when we're cooking.

Your favourite painting

With the family a couple of years ago, we went to the Sistine Chapel and saw the ceiling by Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam. The awe of it was something quite beautiful.

A possession you’d never sell

My mum used to love Chanel Number 5, so I have a full bottle, of what was my mum's last bottle, that still sits on my dressing table. I would never sell that.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

It was a Japanese exhibition of kimonos over the years at the V&A. It was so stunning to the point that I decided to get a kimono if I ever went to Japan. I forgot when I was there recently, but I am going to go back with the family next year so I want to do that then.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Definitely my family, whether they want to come or not — they’re getting stranded with me. Also goggles, a diving suit, because I like to dive, and also to survive, a great set of kitchen knives, a solar-powered music system, decent shoes and a water purifier.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Hassler Roma hotel in Italy. It was very classic. The brother and sister that took it over are so wonderful and warm. For me, hotels are very much about the people, otherwise, it's just an empty building. It’s the same with restaurants as well. The Nimb hotel in Copenhagen, which is in the middle of an old theme park, was also something quite special. The one that's been built in Samoa, Monalei Villas in Apia, is also very special. I think, because it's a country where I was born, that it is definitely one I would always go back to.

The last podcast you listened to

The last podcast I listened to was probably the one Giles Coren and his wife have [Giles Coren Has No Idea] because they’re just bickering mostly, and I know them, so I find it quite funny to listen to.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I look forward to getting up in the morning and starting the day. I find life such a gift. When I get up I do a little prayer and then do a Bible reading, but then even to take just 10 minutes to be outside in the garden when it's so early, like 6:30 in the morning, when the sun's just coming up. I find that such a beautiful time of the morning, just to have a bit of that space before everything starts and appreciate life, in a moment with my God. That's my day set.

The person who would play you in a film of your life

Well, The Rock [Dwayne Johnson] couldn’t do it. I’d need a Samoan out there that could. I don’t know, maybe Zoë Kravitz? She’s pretty cool. I think she’d rock a blonde haircut too.

The items you collect

I don’t collect them, but I have a nice few handbags. I tell my husband that they’re an investment, because they'll all go to my daughter and become vintage. Every now and then I’ll let him put his car keys in one of them too, or even his wallet sometimes.

The best present you've ever received

My dad had this gold watch. It wasn't anything stupidly expensive, but for him it was. He was wearing it one day and I was teasing him. I said: ‘Oh, Dad, that would look better on my wrist.’ So he took it off, and he put it on my wrist, and said: ‘When I pass away, this is yours.’ He left it to me, so that's very special. Also all the little cards my daughter has written over the years when she was tiny. Those I find really precious.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten.

The most memorable meal I've eaten is memorable for a different reason. We were having lunch and there was a bit of a commotion happening a table or so across from us, then all of a sudden, I noticed one of the guests on the other side who looked shocked. A woman was choking. There was someone trying to do the Heimlich movement on the guest. We've done first aid courses — they are very important when you're running a restaurant — so I knew that if someone is choking, you have about four or five minutes before it gets really dangerous for them. I sort of kept an eye on it, but members of the staff kept running past our table crying, so I said to my husband that we had to go and help. The guy who was doing the Heimlich was doing it too low, so I put my husband there to do it instead and everything came out. I had a napkin ready, so I just caught it, wrapped it, handed it to the staff, and said to everyone: ‘Just let them be. Give them space.’ That was a meal that became memorable, because it's also a restaurant that we go to quite a bit. On the last time we visited, maybe they forgot what had happened, but they put us on that table.

For more information on Monica's work with itsu, see their website.

You could be convinced that Jennifer Garner is just your average time-strapped working mother, rather than an internationally famous actor. When I video call her one Friday morning, she is remarkably down to earth; immediately she puts her phone down and for the following 10 minutes I am treated to an exclusive close-up of the A-lister’s passenger-seat footwell. ‘Sorry, I have just dropped my kids at school. I didn’t think this through, so we’re on the fly,’ says the 53-year-old mother of three, as she navigates the Los Angeles traffic with a mug of coffee from home in the cupholder. ‘I had it all together. I got up, worked out and showered, and then I realised I didn’t arrange anyone to take the kids to school so that I could do this interview,’ she explains with all the hapless loveability of her 13 Going On 30 character Jenna Rink.

If you haven’t seen her much-parodied turn in the charming romcom, you may instead know her as the spy Sydney Bristow from J. J. Abrams’s Alias, for which she won a Golden Globe. She also kicked cinematic butt as the superhero Elektra in the 2003 Marvel film Daredevil, alongside her ex-husband Ben Affleck, and starred in subsequent films for the franchise. She is currently gearing up to star in the adaptation of the Elin Hilderbrand novel The Five-Star Weekend, and will also be reprising her role as Hannah Hall in the second series of the thriller The Last Thing He Told Me, in February next year.

Jennifer was born in Texas; her father was a chemical engineer and her mother was an English teacher. She was raised in West Virginia with her two sisters and originally studied chemistry, before changing to theatre at Denison University in Ohio. She started her career as an understudy for the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York before a starring role in the teenage drama series Time of Your Life in 1999. Smaller roles in the films Pearl Harbour and Catch Me If You Can came next, and the rest is history.

In addition to acting, she serves on the board of Save the Children and is the co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, a company that makes organic food for children, which is set to expand to the UK soon. So, with all that going on, is she ready for Christmas? ‘In theory,’ she says. ‘I think I will have a panicked day at some point between now and December 25.’ Jennifer, clearly, is a very busy woman with a lot of spinning plates, but she clearly loves spinning said plates. ‘The whole point of being an actor is that you get to play around and peek into different lives and see how they fit, and what you think, and so I’ve loved both roles I’ve played this year,’ she says. ‘I’m grateful, it’s been a great year of work… it is crazy, but at the same time, there are only so many hours in the day, and the kids are ultimately going to win, so it’s just a case of slotting things in and figuring it out.’

The actor’s reputation for being one of the nicest names in Hollywood is well deserved. She lives with her children, their cat Moose (who she describes as ‘her favourite person’), their labrador, Bugs, and their doodle-cross, Kitty, in a house full of books (the family are all voracious readers). ‘All of our animals are named after other animals,’ Jennifer says, with a charming smile that sums up that inherent whimsy of hers that has made her such a beloved household name.

Your aesthetic hero

When I think of this person, I think of who they were as a person. The homes that they created, that I was so lucky to get to see so many of here in LA, and the joie de vivre that you could see in whatever they wore, and how they lived, and who they were. And that's Diane Keaton. [Keaton also renovated, redesigned and sold several mansions in California, including one that she sold to Madonna.]

A book you found inspiring

I was just talking to someone about this book. It is This is Happiness, by Niall Williams. It is about a fictional town in Ireland that is coming to grips with the encroaching change of electricity. What inspires me about it is that, as disruptive as it is, ultimately stories, connection, people — are still the heart of what matters. And I feel like I'm so unnerved by AI's march toward all of us, and the automation of our world, and it's just a reminder that we've been through these moments before, and that there is no substitute for human connection.

The last thing of note that you bought yourself

A really nice mattress. It’s so good that I don't even want to go on a work trip or on vacation, because I just cannot wait to get back to my mattress.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

When I was in college, there was this huge exhibition at the MoMA of Matisse. I'd been to New York, but I didn't know about MoMA. But my boyfriend's mom at the time said: “It's super important that you see this exhibition,” and so she flew us to New York from Ohio for the weekend — which was unheard of to me. We got to go see this exhibit, and just to see the breadth of the work that Matisse did over really stuck with me — the longevity of just how much you can explore as an artist, how much you can see and do, and also the joy of his work, the dance, the colours, the vibrancy. It just felt very joyful.

A possession you would never sell

My dad gave me a teddy bear. I think it's the only thing that my dad chose for me and gave me. Mom took care of Christmas and birthdays, but Dad got a teddy bear for me from Sears, which was his favourite store; it had all the tools, and he loved tools. It’s name is T Bear, and I wore overalls growing up all the time. I loved overalls. And, one morning I woke up on Christmas morning and I couldn't find T Bear to take him downstairs with me for Christmas. I was so upset. Mom said: “Don't worry, just come downstairs,” and when we got downstairs, T Bear was wearing overalls that my mom had made for him, and she embroidered ‘T Bear’ across the bib of the overalls. So he is in my room and he is not going anywhere.

The music you work to

If I’m in my trailer, it’s Stevie Wonder. My most listened to song last year was Overjoyed by Stevie Wonder. [She sings a snippet to make sure I know the one.] That one, I would get it stuck in everyone's head. It was just my anthem for the year. I don't know why. That and Ribbon In The Sky. [She sings again.] Also, Bill Withers’s Lovely Day. I love those. If I'm just listening for fun, it's Gracie Abrams, and it's the country station, because I grew up where country music was king. Or the pianist Alexandra Stréliski, if I need to focus. A director who I adored, Jean-Marc Vallée, when we were prepping for Dallas Buyers Club, said: “There's music I want you to listen to when you're thinking about your character,” and he sent me this beautiful pianist, and devastatingly, he is gone now, but her music always reminds me of him.

The last podcast you listened to

It was either Kelly Corrigan’s podcast or Up First.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Any of the girls who have played my daughters, whether that's Jenna Ortega, Maika Monroe, Angourie Rice or Emma Myers. I've had the most amazing movie daughters, and they know me really well, and I love them. So any of them.

What you’d take to a desert island

Assuming that you have water and food and some form of shelter and sunscreen available, I would take toilet paper — you know, I'm not a leaf kinda gal — and then a suitcase full of books and some friends to laugh with.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Coffee and knowing I have a workout with friends.

The items you collect

I collect women. As friends — as sisters. I have two amazing sisters, and I think it means that I can slot in with women really easily, and I feel really comfortable with women, and I like that kind of intimate relationship. I'm better at that than parties. Parties kind of make me nervous, but I really have great, great women in my life. I collected women on 13 Going on 30. The costume designer from that movie, I've worked with ever since. Judy Greer [the actor] is still one of my closest friends. Judy’s in The Last Thing He Told Me, this season, she's also in The Five-Star Weekend. And a bunch of the women that I worked with, starting on Alias, which was right before 13 Going on 30, we still all work together.

A hotel you could go back and back to

There are lots. I really love a nice hotel. I love the Covent Garden Hotel, which is by Firmdale, because I’ve stayed there so many times and it represents to me what’s happening; either, I’m going to see some theatre, or I’m going to do something fun. I also love The Lowell in New York. They both just have a coziness to them, and they are close to the theatre, and I've been there with my family a bunch of times, so they feel lovely to me.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

During 13 Going on 30, my parents came to visit me, and we were shooting in New York. One night, I took them out to Daniel Boulud’s restaurant, and we had one of those five-hour meals, and it was just me and my parents, and I'm the middle sister, so I didn't have a ton of that one-on-one time growing up. It was just one of those nights where they told me things, and we talked about everything, and the food was so good and really adventurous for all of us, and it was just really special. That was a really memorable meal.

Your favourite painting

It's called Woman With Yellow Hair, it's by Picasso, and it hangs in the Guggenheim in New York. The reason I think of that one is that I took one of my kids on a surprise trip to New York for a birthday, and as part of it we looked through the paintings at the Guggenheim, and when we found Woman With Yellow Hair, they just stood there in front of it for so long, captivated by the curve in the painting. It's very sumptuous, kind of dreamy, and the opposite of the Cubist Picasso. You feel like you could rest on this woman's arm as she's resting on her table.

The best present you’ve ever received

My daughter one year made me these coupons, when she was about 16 or 17. They say things like: ‘Mama was right: siblings are the most important’; ‘Mama was right: everything works out in the end’; ‘Mama was right: I love my driver's license’. That’s my favourite gift.

The latest season of ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ will be out on Apple TV in February next year. You can find out more about Once Upon A Farm here.

Ivana Bueno and I are both 26 years old. We have brown hair, brown eyes and are petite in stature. We both enjoy spending time with our friends and families and have jobs we adore. We are similar in many ways apart from one. She is a prima ballerina at the English National Ballet, and I am not. This is immediately obvious, when I meet her at the ballet company’s east London headquarters, by the way she sits (tall and composed), her physique (lean but strong) and how she’s dressed (a red tutu and pointe shoes). Her perfection is ruined only by her nails, bitten down to stubs, a habit she has had since she was a child. The minute our interview ends she will be off to dance. Disciplined and composed, it’s hard to imagine her as a naughty four-year-old who wouldn’t be told what to do in her first ballet class — but she was.

‘I hated it at the beginning, because the teacher would scream at me because I couldn't behave,’ says Ivana, who will be dancing the lead role of Clara in The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum until January 11. When I saw her in it, she took my breath away. ‘I started ballet when I was four years old, but it was always just a fun activity to do, I didn’t know I could live off it,’ she says. Born to a psychologist mother and a father who ran a transport business in Córdoba, Mexico, it was her older sister that encouraged Ivana to begin dancing, along with a family friend who was the director of the local ballet. Ivana attended dance classes after school almost every night. ‘I would finish school at 2:30pm, go home, eat, get changed, and go to ballet from 4pm to 9pm, then go home and do my homework for the next day,’ she recalls.

At the age of 14, Ivana was offered a scholarship to finish her training at the Academy Princess Grace ballet school in Monte Carlo. ‘I only saw it as an opportunity to go abroad and leave home. I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to be a ballet dancer,’ she admits. ‘But once I got there, everything was so professional. Every girl that was there, was there because they wanted to be a ballet dancer. They had it clear, that's what they wanted to do.’ Homesickness hit hard for the teenage dancer. ‘I love ballet, but I've also always been very close with my family and friends in Mexico. So I did struggle quite a bit at the beginning when I got there,’ Ivana says. ‘In fact I was crying every day for three months, missing my parents. But, at the end of that first year in Monte Carlo, when we did the end of the year show, I stepped on stage and I felt goosebumps in my body that — I even get them now, because I remember that moment so well. Then I was like, “No, this is really what I want to do”’.

She was scouted by Tamara Rojo, the then artistic director of the English National Ballet, a year before she graduated, but deferred the offer until she had finished her studies. She then came to London aged 18. ‘It was so different from Monte Carlo,’ she says. ‘I was living by myself and, I'm not gonna lie, it was really difficult… I felt like they’d thrown me into an empty pool and I didn't know how to swim. But then eventually things got better,’ she pauses. ‘I felt so much freedom and I didn’t know how to control it [at first].’

The turning point came when she was given the opportunity to compete in the Emerging Dancer competition. Covid came and pushed it back, but she trained everyday during lockdown. ‘It was like a motivation for me, because I knew that when we came back to work I would still have to do that competition.’ She won, and her career reached new heights again when she was thrown in as the lead of Christopher Wilden’s Cinderella at the Royal Albert Hall, 10 days before the show was due to open, when another dancer became injured. ‘I was really nervous,’ she says. ‘But I have really good memories of it.’ Two years later the same thing happened at the same venue, this time during Swan Lake, but Ivana was ready.

‘I have so much fun in the role,’ she says of dancing Clara, who she describes as ‘curious’ and ‘brave’ in this version of the iconic Christmas ballet, The Nutcracker. She does not have ambitions to be a choreographer: ‘I don’t think that’s my talent, but I enjoy working with them, and I like having someone who lets me input my own ideas from time to time.’ This won’t be a hindrance; she is not only incredibly beautiful but, I realise during our interview, incredibly tough and strong-willed. In short, the perfect Clara for our modern age.

Your aesthetic hero

My mum.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I went with my ballet teacher to The Wallace Collection. It was amazing. I was so impressed.

The last thing you bought yourself

They’re going to kill me about this one, but I bought a Prada bag recently. I don’t really want to say it, but I don’t regret it! It’s white.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

People always say I look like Anya Taylor-Joy, but with brown hair. She could do it… if she can dance. It has to be someone who can dance. Maybe I could do the dancing and she could do the acting.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Growing up I went to this hotel and I have so many good memories of being there with my family. It was in Puerto Aventuras in Mexico, but I think they’ve changed the name of it now.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I would say New Year’s Eve at home, when I was young. Every year it was a really nice gathering.

The music that you work to

When I am not at work I always listen to Latin music, but I like house music as well. My Spotify Wrapped listening age was 25 — I’m very normal.

Your favourite painting

Botticelli’s ‘Three Graces of the Primavera’.

A book you’ve found inspiring

I like reading stories — romantic stories, or thrillers. I recently read Colleen Hoover’s Verity. I couldn't stop reading it, it was so good. I wasn’t really a reader before as when I had free time I would go out with my friends, but it's something I always wanted to become. Eventually I would like to get into more psychology books — for self wellbeing.

The last podcast you listen to

I like Mel Robbins’s The Let Them Theory.

A possession you’d never sell

I would never really sell my Cinderella pointe shoes. I would sell any of the others, but that pair is special. I gave one to my ballet teacher, and I have the other one.

What you'd take to a desert island

This is so simple. I would do water — to survive. And I’d take my mum, if I could.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Just the ability of being grateful for another day in life. Like this morning, I woke up and I was already complaining because I was cold, and then I was like: ‘I can't complain about this. There is so much going on in the world, and I just have to be so grateful for where I stand and that I'm here to live another day.’

The items you collect

I like to collect travel souvenirs from other countries. And photo booth pictures, because I take them and put them in my dressing room, and I have memories with all of my friends. So every time I see a photo booth, I have to take photos with whoever I am with, to remember the memory.

The best present you’ve ever received

I mean, it's not really a present, but something I'm really grateful for is that my parents always allowed me to live my life and explore without putting limits on me. They always guided me, but never really stopped me from doing anything. They let me go very young and even now they allow me to live my own life. Now that I’m grown up, I think this must be really hard for them, and I think that when I have my kids I will want to protect them so much, and I feel like they never protected me in that way. So that's something I'm very grateful for from them — they always gave me the chance to go and live my life. It's a present, because not everyone has it.

The Nutcracker is playing until January 11, 2026, at the London Coliseum. For more details see their website.

Fred Sirieix is extremely French. He is so French that, during our allotted 30 minutes together, I fear we may not even make it to his Consuming Passions. He has just had his garden done, you see, and — in true Fred style — is very excited about it. ‘I just had it done yesterday. How timely for you,’ he says, acknowledging Country Life’s botanically-inclined readership. ‘I'm really happy with it today, but I'm thinking about next year already.’ It is this ambition, and perhaps impatience, that I suspect has made Fred such a success.

The Maître d'hôtel is best known as the charming host of Channel 4’s First Dates. He has also hosted BBC Two’s My Million Pound Menu and has appeared on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and Gordon, Gino and Fred’s Road Trip alongside chefs Gordon Ramsay and Gino D'Acampo. Media work, however, was something that came later in life.

He was born in Limoges, France, in 1972 to doctors for the French version of the NHS (the Protection Universelle Maladie or PUMA for short). ‘We lived 500 meters from the hospital, and so it felt as if my parents never worked, because my dad was working nights, and my mum was working in the daytime.’ Fred’s father had a big effect on him. ‘He liked to say that he was a modern man, my dad, because he used to do the cleaning, he used to make the beds, take us to school, dress us up — all this kind of stuff that a lot of men didn't do at the time.’ His parents were also ‘great entertainers’ and often had guests round for drinks and dinner parties. ‘That really informed, and started, my career in hospitality, in a way, because these are the very basics that I had from a very early age. So when I started catering college at 16 years old, I already had all this experience of how to work, and how to look after people.’

He has said in previous interviews that he feels as British as he does French, having lived here now for much longer than he did in France. The move came in the early 1990s, ‘a great time to be in the UK,’ Fred says. ‘When I was at school, I met a guy called Julien — we used to call him Julio, from Julio Iglesias because he was so tall. He could do push ups. He had a big chest, big arms — he was like God’s gift to women, and he was a very nice guy who went on to work in the UK.’ He was a couple of years older than Fred and had noticed his love of languages and aptitude for speaking English. Julien advised Fred to go to England when he was 18, and he did. He has never looked back .

‘Professionally, I was interested in going to the UK because it was the best place for restaurants. I wanted to be part of the elite of hospitality, you know, people of this SAS squad of uber professionals that travelled the world, but also because I loved England. I loved the UK, because it was so different from France. It was Sid Vicious, and the Sex Pistols. It was a packed lunch with an egg mayonnaise sandwich, crisps, orange juice and a Mars bar.’ The difference from home was what he adored. ‘When you came to the UK, you suddenly met the world.’

Buying himself a pinstriped suit and hailing a taxi ‘like one of those yuppies’ was the first thing on his agenda — ‘I felt like I was in The Wolf of Wall Street, or something like that.’ He was working at La Tante Claire in London, a restaurant in Chelsea owned by Pierre Koffmann that had three Michelin stars by 1993. He then went on to work at La Gavroche, Brasserie Rous and Sartoria before becoming the general manager of another Michelin-starred establishment, Galvin at Windows at the Park Lane Hilton. In 2017 he launched a system that taught prisoners about the hospitality industry.

The TV work happened gradually. He began with a show called Service for the BBC about a charity Fred had started in order to get disadvantaged children into education and then full-time employment. ‘People liked it, and I enjoyed it, and I pursued it because it's the same qualities, the same values, the same principles of what you need in restaurants to succeed. Basically, it’s about performing, being trusted and your reputation.’

He is now 53, and has two children from a previous relationship, a 16-year-old son and a 21-year-old daughter, Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix, a diver for team GB who won a bronze medal with Lois Toulson in the 10-metre synchronised event at the 2024 Summer Olympics. He often appears on Celebrity Gogglebox with his wife (who he married last year) and who is known publicly only as ‘Fruitcake’.

He went viral on I’m a Celebrity for clashing with Nigel Farage over Brexit, and again for consoling his daughter on TV when she narrowly missed out on a medal in the women’s 10-metre dive in 2024. When he is on screen with Gordan and Gino it is comedy gold. The trio seem to be funny no matter where they are or what they are doing — be it frolicking on a nudist beach in St Tropez or being forced to choke down rattlesnake tequila in Tijuana. Fred always has a lot of projects on the go. He is currently working on a campaign with Boursin Cheese which he calls ‘a real memory of France’ and which includes the cheesiest Christmas advert I have ever clamped my eyes on. He also has a beach club version of First Dates coming out this December, which he is very proud of. ‘It’s full of twists and turns,’ he says. ‘It’s quite incredible, the stories that start and what people think of each other.’ It also can’t have been far away from a piña colada and a poolside sun lounger, which I imagine may have helped

Your aesthetic hero

I like Jake Paul, because he’s got balls. He started from nothing and he’s fighting Anthony Joshua right now. He's created an empire. He's really confident, and he's going for it — and I really like that.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

A couple of weeks ago I went to see an exhibition of the work of Lee Miller. She was a female correspondent during World War Two. She had a bath in Hitler's bath, she was part of the force that liberated a concentration camp, you know, she was quite a force. What I love about her is that she was persistent. She was a photographer at the time of Man Ray and she wanted to work with him, and he never wanted to work with her. She kept knocking on his door and in the end he took her as his assistant and they became lovers, so there you are.

The last thing of note you bought for yourself

I bought myself a few plants — four big trees, one of them a beautiful Japanese-style cherry tree — and 200 bulbs. It’s a Japanese theme, the phase one transformation of my garden. They are planted now, I'm looking at them and I'm very happy and satisfied. I can't tell you how happy I am. It was like Christmas yesterday.

Your favourite painting

It’s actually a picture, and it is in my house. I really love it, because when I look at it I just relax. It was taken by a photographer called Joe Howard. I have bought a few of his paintings and his photographs, and the last one I commissioned from him was a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night, because I had such a great time at the Olympics and it’s a great way to remember it.

A possession you’d never sell

The only things I think, maybe, are things of sentimental value, like the birthday cards from my children — things like that. Otherwise, I'm not really precious with my possessions. We come and we go. Today I'm here, tomorrow I might not be. It doesn't matter what I have. I think that we are too close to our possessions, I don't need much.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

The music you work to

Reggae music.

The last podcast you listened to

The Rest is History. It was about the East India Company, how it was set up, and Robert Clive and all that — fascinating.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Hmm… maybe [Timothée] Chalamet? But he would have to speak like me.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I'm just happy to be alive. I wake up in the morning and I'm just so happy. I'm here, I'm alive. I'm so lucky to be here, to be healthy, to be well. Everybody's well, everybody's good around me, and it's beautiful. Nothing gets me up. Life. Being alive gets me up. I'm just motivated by being alive. I find it very nice.

The items you collect

I like to collect memories, good times. I have an obsession with having a good time. That's what I want to do every time, every day, all the time. I mean, I like to collect wines, I do buy a lot of wine, but I'd rather say memories.

A hotel you could go back and back to

There are so many, but one place I like to go back to is my friend's bed and breakfast. It's Le Bastit, in the Lot department in southwestern France. It’s an amazing bed-and-breakfast in the middle of nowhere in a place called Gramat, which is a little village, and the food is incredible. The region is so beautiful, and you can go anytime of the year, but I mean obviously spring and summer are amazing. It's just a haven for gastronomy.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

When I went home my mum made me my favourite recipe — which is everybody’s favourite recipe in the family, which is rabbit in a mustard sauce with french fries. You can go to any restaurant and look for a better one than my mum's and you won’t find it. I have looked, and it’s at a point now where if it’s on a restaurant menu I do not order it, because it can't be as good as my mum’s.

The best present you’ve ever received

I am not very materialistic, but probably this earring from my brother. I had a cheap stud for five euros and then he got me this diamond one.

For more information on Boursin visit their website.

Mark Gatiss will never do Taskmaster because people assume he is very clever and he’d like to keep it that way. He reveals this to me over lunch in Franco's, one of London's oldest, and very delicious, Italian restaurants. He is best known for playing the impeccably dressed (and very clever) Mycroft Holmes in the immensely popular BBC adaptation Sherlock, which he co-created and wrote with Steven Moffat, as well as the very clever detective Book in his murder mystery series Bookish, Tycho Nestoris in Game of Thrones and, of course, for a range of roles in The League of Gentlemen.

‘You play very clever and also extremely posh people — many of them very posh Londoners,’ I tell him. ‘But that’s not you at all?’’

‘It happens, doesn’t it?’ he replies with a faded, yet still distinctly northeastern accent, derived from his working-class upbringing in Durham. ‘I remember talking to a BBC executive once and he said: “I’d really like you to write something that is a lot more earthy and working class, because not everyone’s posh like us, Mark,” and I said: “I’m not f***ing posh.”’

The double Olivier award-winner rose to fame playing an array of odd characters — from Les McQueen, a fading 1970s singer unable to let go of his glory days, to Hilary Briss, the rather macabre local butcher — in the BBC show The League of Gentlemen. Premiering in 1999, the surrealist comedy-horror series set in northern England starred Mark and his fellow writers Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson. Mark has also appeared as Frank Renfield in the BBC and Netflix miniseries Dracula and Lord Marlborough, the husband of Rachel Weisz’s character in the dark period comedy The Favourite. Among his other credits are Operation Mincemeat, The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. He is also beloved by many ‘Whovians’ for his work as a writer, and an actor, in Doctor Who.

‘I always wanted to act and write — that obviously didn't mean it was going to happen, but that was certainly my ambition,’ says Mark. I ask him about his latest projects. The first is The Room in the Tower, a chilling Christmas ghost story he has written for the BBC, which will star Joanna Lumley and Tobias Menzies. Another writing project is the return of his adaptation of A Christmas Carol at Alexandra Palace in London this year. His detective series Bookish, in which he stars, has also recently been confirmed for a second season. As if that wasn’t enough, Mark is also preparing to return to the stage next year for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a satire on Hitler’s ascent to power where he will play the titular 1930s Chicago mobster.

‘I‘ve been preparing all my life. I saw it when I was a teenager, and it blew my mind, and I've always wanted to do it,’ he says of the Brechtian work. ‘I've seen many great productions, but it's gone from being a warning from history to being — excuse my French — extremely f***ing urgent to put on. Not that it's going to change the course of history, but I feel like I'm doing something to demonstrate how easily you can slide into authoritarianism, and the pattern is just extraordinary. The playbook is being used again, and it still works,’ he concludes, referring mainly to, as he calls him, ‘Mr Orange Man in America’.

The actor was born in 1966 in Sedgefield, the youngest of three children. His father was a colliery engineer who later changed careers to work as an engineer in the local mental hospital. His mother was a secretary in a paint factory, but she later worked at the hospital too. ‘We grew up opposite it, in a house owned by the hospital,’ Mark recalls. ‘Friends at school used to cycle past it speedily because they were scared. But it is mental illness — it is nothing to be scared of.’ The biggest terror in Mark’s young life was not his proximity to the mental hospital but sharing a room. ‘My brother started smoking and snoring and I don’t think I slept properly for maybe three years. It was a nightly horror,’ he jokes. At one point Mark's cousin ran away from home and came to live with them. ‘There were three of us in that room and we used to rotate on a camp bed. For a long time, we had it rough,’ he says. ‘I’m very glad to have had a grounded upbringing because it makes me appreciate things. My mother told me they were just so frightened of getting into debt.’

When Mark’s career took off he treated his parents to a holiday in Madeira. ‘They didn’t like it,’ he recalls with a laugh. ‘You can’t please your parents — you just can’t. It is not allowed. There is a rule.’

Living so near the hospital as a child led to ‘so many weird little Gothic complications’, such as having to go through the hospital’s telephone operator in order to call someone, which perhaps inspired Mark’s lifelong obsession with horror films and the gothic genre. ‘It used to sort of rule our lives really, as kids, because so much centered around it. We went swimming there, had a haircut there, went to the cinema there. In the early days [of my career] I used to push against the idea of the obvious symbolism, but the older I get the more I realise that I think it did have an effect. Although my brother’s a postman, so I don't know whether there’s any gothic sensibility there.’ Eventually Mark joined his family in working there too, as a gardener for the summer. ‘It made me see the whole place totally differently,’ he says.

Gardening was just one part of a countryside childhood. ‘I had, looking back at it, strangely, quite a rural upbringing,’ Mark says. He attended primary school in the village of Heighington, where his brother still lives today. ‘It was much more country-fied than I realised at the time. Then I went to secondary school in a post-war new town that was much more brutal. The north-east of England is a curious combination of amazing countryside and often quite grim industrial towns that have mining roots. It was an interesting mixture.’

Of his school days, he recalls being semi-academic, ‘very good at some things, hopeless at others.’ He is ‘pretty sure’ now that he has ADHD, but doesn’t feel a need to have it diagnosed. Maths was a write-off, but art history, English and science were his favourites. His enemy was physical education. ‘If there is an opposite to having an interest in sports, that was me. I hated PE with such a fervour that I now find it ironic and quite pleasing that I run and swim, as that used to be the bane of my life.’ The exception was yoga, ‘I did it from an early age and am still quite flexible.’

After his job as a gardener he went interrailing before auditioning for drama schools and landing a place at Bretton Hall College in Yorkshire, where he met Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson — and The League of Gentlemen was born. It took a while for his acting and writing to take off full-time, so he worked in a children’s nursery, and as a film reviewer for a newspaper before permanently making the move to London in 1991. He still adores it here and lives in Islington. He is an adamant north Londoner. ‘Johnathan Miller described south London as very much London’s backstage area,’ he tells me, when I mention that I am a south Londoner.

Acting work came and went for Mark. He was ‘on the dole’ for a spell and didn’t work for around two years before The League took off properly. They won the Perrier Award at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which launched them to stardom. ‘The BBC were very keen,’ he recalls of the original, which was a radio show. ‘It looked like it was absolutely guaranteed, and I've now discovered that the controller of BBC Two turned it down six times. But the same thing happened to Stanley Kubrick. And that’s not a BBC-bashing thing, it happens across the board.’

Sherlock was the phenomenon that Mark didn’t see coming. It starred Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson and launched the careers of Benedict Cumberbatch (who played the eponymous deerstalker-sporting detective) and Andrew Scott (who was cast as his archnemesis: Jim Moriarty). ‘Martin was already a name,’ Mark says, ‘but we watched Benedict become a star. It was like bottled lightning. With Andrew, the best thing was that at least two casting directors afterwards came to me saying: “You bastard. I wanted to discover Andrew Scott”.’ Matt Smith also auditioned for Dr Watson. ‘It was immediately apparent that he was not that kind of character, and about two weeks later he got Doctor Who,’ Mark says.

Bookish is also a detective story, but a post-war one that Mark has had the idea for, for around eight years. ‘I wanted to do my own detective story and that setting after the war really fascinates me — and it's never done.’ It’s a triumph and sees Mark, in full tweed, being his wittiest and best, and also most poignant. The protagonist, Book, like Mark, is a gay man. ‘There's a lot of me in Book, but it's more about exploring that time, and what it meant, and I think, in a non-didactic way, trying to tell people what it used to be like, and how easily it could be like that again, and in certain parts of the world still is.’ He also thinks it important that Book is ‘incidentally gay’. ‘Bookish is a murder mystery series. That's the most important thing. The back story is the lavender marriage. It's not about that — the most important thing is “whodunnit?”’

Your aesthetic hero

Aubrey Beardsley. He was a genius of late-19th century art and died of consumption aged 25. It was quite a life.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The Bowie exhibition. I missed it at the V&A, then went to Australia and it was on there. I remember passing it and thinking: ‘This is fate’. It was mind blowing.

The last thing of note that you bought yourself

I bought a 16th century painting which we believe is of Edmund Spenser, who wrote The Faerie Queene, but we can't ascertain, because it's painted on copper and is very small. It’s absolutely exquisite.

Your favourite painting

John Singer Sargent's Dr. Pozzi at Home. It’s an amazing picture. He was a controversial French gynaecologist murdered by one of his lovers.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. I used to live opposite Arsenal stadium in the early 1990s and my friend bought me that for my birthday. I was like, ‘Thanks,’ because I'm not interested in football. He said: ‘Read it, and you’ll understand.’ And I read it, and I went: ‘Of course’. What it's about is passion. So the football is detailed, but what it's about is a man's obsession.

The music you work to

I have to have total silence. It’s never worked for me.

The last podcast you listened to

The Traitors Uncloaked. Apart from that I listen to The Rest is Entertainment.

The possession you’d never sell

My dog, Bob — an eight-year-old adorable Labrador.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

I’d play me. Otherwise I don’t know — who would want to? Some young buck. Some handsome 20-year-old. One of the proudest moments of my life was when Graeme Garden, from The Goodies, was asked that question and he said Mark Gatiss. I thought, something's gone right there. He’s a childhood hero of mine.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I’ve done this [on Desert Island Discs], I'm afraid. My luxury item was a bath, despite the shady lagoon, which is there in the title music. I would take a big cast iron bath with ball and claw legs and a lifetime supply of hot water.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Swimming. I can’t run at the moment because I’ve done my knee in so I’ve started going swimming again, three days a week, and I’m obsessed with it. I’m hoping the novelty lasts.

The items you collect

I collect pictures by John Minton, my favourite artist. I have eight of them.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The best hotel I've ever stayed in was in a place called Fukuoka in Japan. It was like being in Dr. No. An extraordinary hotel of concrete and rock, like a Ken Adam set. It was absolutely amazing. It was so sophisticated I couldn't find the light switch, and I spent the whole night with an eye mask on, because I was too embarrassed to ring and ask where it was.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

It's definitely the spicy tuna in that restaurant in LA, which I can never remember the name of, which Steven Moffat introduced me to.

The best present you’ve received

I bought myself the Jon Pertwee jacket from The Planet of the Daleks, 1973.

Lotte and Mark dined at Franco's in London. For more information or to book a table see their website.

For tickets to A Christmas Carol at Alexander Palace, written by Mark Gatiss, see here.

Petra Palumbo reminds me of the cool blonde girl in the year above at school, who you were desperate to be friends with, but who was always socially out of your reach. Effortlessly stylish and unbelievably nice, the homeware designer’s sense of fun is infectious: her Delft tiles come decorated with everything from six-packs of beers and Henry hoovers to naked torsos complete with bad tan lines. Basically, she’s up for a laugh.

She’s also doing a terribly good job of being a shy aristocrat. Her father is Baron Peter Palumbo, the property magnate, art collector and former confidante of Princess Diana and her mother is Lady Hayat Palumbo, the creative mind behind South Kensington’s Tapisserie. Her half brother, James, founded the Ministry of Sound. Her husband is Simon Fraser, the 16th Lord Lovat, a grandson of war hero Lord ‘Shimi’ Lovat, and descended from the Scottish clan that inspired the series Outlander. She never mentions any of this when I ask about her family.

‘I'm a cocktail of Lebanese, Italian and English,’ says Petra, who currently lives between Scotland and London with her husband, an old family friend with whom she shares two daughters and two pugs — Watson and Raisin. One’s name is a homage to the famous detective’s stalwart companion. The other is the celebration of a grape in its most shrivelled and pathetic iteration.

Her Italian-English father was the last chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain, before it was divided into separate councils in 1994 and went on to become the chairman of the Pritzker Prize for architecture. He also sat as a Conservative Life Peer in the House of Lords from 1991 to 2019. His surname, which Petra shares, means ‘ring dove’ in the dialects of southern Italy. Over time, the translation has come to embody ‘the dove of peace’, which Petra has adopted as her brand’s logo.

Her upbringing in west London was ‘very much inspired by my mum and her Lebanese culture,’ Petra says, recalling many family holidays to Beirut, where her mother is from. ‘She has an amazing needlepoint store called Tapisserie, which has been going for 40 years. So creativity has always been the sort of thread running through my life, and I think it was through her that colour and pattern became my language.’

‘I 100% always knew that I was going to do something creative. There was no question about it,’ she says of her school days. Her first gig fresh out of school was a boon: a job at Dior, working in jewellery. ‘I was supposed to be put in textiles, but they didn't have any space,’ she says. She worked under her now good friend, Camille Miceli, who is the creative director of the Italian fashion house Pucci. ‘That was a life lesson in detail, and in professionalism, and in the original and in je ne sais quoi.’

After two years at Dior, Petra returned to her roots, working for her mother in her needlepoint shop and moonlighting as a fashion model, socialite and all-round ‘It Girl’, after which she went to study printed textiles at Chelsea College of Arts. ‘That's where I really experimented and garnered my passion for screen printing,’ Petra says. She refers to it as ‘some of the best years of my life’.

In 2018 she left, setting up her namesake brand, ‘with the aim of bringing beauty and function together whilst treading as lightly as possible on the planet’, the designer says. That last part has perhaps been inspired by her Scottish husband, who traded a job in finance for one in renewables. I imagine he may also have been the inspiration for her brand’s tartan wallpaper and floor tiles.

Your aesthetic hero

Vera Neumann is someone that comes to mind. She was an American artist and designer who was celebrated for her joyful, optimistic textiles. I love the way that she had an extraordinary gift for turning hand painted drawings into everyday objects, like scarves, linens, tableware — she was making art both democratic, but also deeply personal. I would say that her aesthetic was defined by bold colour, playful motifs and painted brush strokes inspired mostly by nature, travel and modern art.

I'm always so uplifted when I see her work, and what I most admire is the way that she balances sophistication with accessibility. Her pieces are full of personality, but they never feel very out of reach, and her ethos is very much in line with mine: that good design should bring joy to daily life.

A book you’ve found inspiring

There's a coffee table book that feels quite personal, because the photographer is a dear friend and a collaborator, his name is Alex Baxter. It’s called A Place in Scotland, and it captures a sort of new confidence in Scottish style, with spaces and homes that feel both rooted in tradition and but equally forward looking. It's inspiring to see Scotland's story told in such a considered way, especially as it's a place I call home.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The last time I was in London, I saw a major show of Emily Kame Kngwarreye at the Tate Modern. She is an Aboriginal Australian and I found her work completely overwhelming, but in the best possible way, I was sort of in tears the entire time. It was vast, powerful and deeply rooted in her connection to her country. There was such energy and colour and spirit in every piece, it felt less like looking at her paintings and more like being immersed in her world.

The best present you’ve ever received

This Christmas, I received a gift that moved me more than I can put into words. It was a large donation to Save the Children Lebanon made in my name and in the wake of the most recent war, and that gesture went far beyond any material and speaks directly to compassion, empathy and a hope for a brighter future. So I was really moved by that. It was from my husband.

Your favourite painting

It's really difficult for me to pinpoint a single painting, but there's always one artist that I go back to time and time again, because his use of colour is just so dynamic and vibrant and full of life, and it's David Hockney. I've always loved watching the evolution of his paintings from the 1950s right up until the modern day. But there's one in particular, which is called Red Pots in a Garden, which was painted in 2000, which I just can't get enough of. I actually get a genuine dopamine hit every time I see his work. It just never fails to lift my spirit.

The music you work to

If I'm creating and drawing then I tend to drift between Afro jazz from the 1960s and 70s, for instance, the rhythms of Letta Mbulu and her contemporaries, because they bring such a warmth and energy that feels sort of grounding, but also uplifting. Then I'll lean into more of the moodiness of post punk and new wave music, like Joy Division, Talking Heads, The Cure, that sort of thing. I just find that mix of introspection and edge always seems to spark new ideas that keep me in the flow.

A possession you’d never sell

I would never sell my mother's needlepoint archive. She has over 5,000 original designs — the work of her lifetime, basically. It's priceless to me, not only because of what it represents when it comes to her career and creativity, but also because I can't wait to keep breathing life into those patterns and turning them into wallpapers and tiles and fabrics, which is what I've been doing, and what I hope to continue to do.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I would take with me a photo album filled with pictures of my family and friends. I've always been deeply nostalgic and very visual, so having those faces and memories with me would be an anchor, I think.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Albergo hotel in Beirut, which is designed by my amazingly talented friend, Maria Ousseimi. Everyone just needs to go there. It's a place where east meets west in the most seamless and evocative way. Every corner tells a story — you have Ottoman arches paired with European elegance and rich textiles set against antique furniture, and walls with artworks that speak about Lebanon's layered history. It's a sort of act of resistance, the hotel. It's always been standing and no matter what happens around you, it's there, and it's just iconic. It feels opulent, but intimate and transporting, yet deeply rooted in its setting.

The last podcast you listened to

I really enjoyed listening to The Diary of a CEO. There was one episode that he did with Jefferson Fisher, and it really made me think about how I communicate day to day. He talks about dropping weak words and fillers that chip away at credibility and instead paying attention to presence, through posture, tone, eye contact — they often say more than words themselves. I loved his point about the power of a pause too: that silence can just be just as commanding as speech, and what to do in moments of conflict. His advice is basically to stay calm, set boundaries and ask clarifying questions, rather than letting insecurity and verbal incontinence take over, and that really resonated with me.

The last thing of note you bought yourself

I bought a pair of Belle Reve bedside tables by Rita Konig for The Lacquer Company in blood red, and they're my favourite piece ever. I look at them and I'm just completely obsessed. They're chic, practical, full of character, and they feel like the perfect blend of elegance and everyday use.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Charlize Theron.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Our kids, they're just our human alarm clocks.

The items you collect

I collect vintage embroidered samplers from the USA. So from the 1930s, 40s and 50s, and they're stitched with witty and heartfelt sayings, like, ‘No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best’. I love them because they capture a timeless blend of humour, sentiment and domestic poetry, and they've got a naivety to the cross stitching. They’re such fun.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

At the Hotel Palmyra in Baalbek, Lebanon, which is a place as atmospheric as it is historic, with sweeping views of Roman ruins — and the hotel itself is utterly legendary. Lawrence of Arabia, Jean Cocteau and countless other artists, writers and travellers have passed through its doors. So dining there feels like you're stepping back in time, and with everything in the region and in Lebanon changing so quickly through violence and through wars, it feels so nice to be going back to a place that has stood the test of time. I had an incredible meal there. I'll never forget it.

Visit Petra Palumbo's website for more information on her homeware design brand.

‘I can tell when something’s going on in someone’s life. It’s like I can smell it, if someone’s having a bad day,’ says the photographer John Rankin Waddell, better known as ‘Rankin’. I have come to his studio in London’s Kentish Town not only to interview him, but to have my photo taken by him, ahead of his upcoming event Rankin Live. It is the photographer’s intuition, honed over many years, that helps him the most in his job, he thinks. Having been the subject of his lens, I would agree. It is his intuition that has made him what he is today — someone who has taken a photograph of everyone from Kate Moss to Elizabeth II. That intuition, and a slightly deranged stubborn tenacity.

Before his illustrious career began, which included editing the magazines Hunger and Dazed and working for brands such as Rolls-Royce and Coca-Cola, Rankin grew up in a working-class family in Glasgow. They moved around a lot for Rankin’s father’s job, first to Yorkshire, then to St Albans. ‘I had a very broad education, because I went to three state schools that were all very, very different, and in a way, I think I was quite lucky,’ he says. This is both because it gave him a talent for accents — he can do a pretty passable Scottish and Yorkshire on demand — and because it gave him confidence when it comes to meeting new people. However at school he felt that he never really fitted in. ‘I loved school, but I never felt comfortable being in any group. I don’t really like them, and I don’t like clubs either.’ Ironic, considering he is the founder of two distinctive cult magazines.

It is his much beloved Scotland that he credits for his ‘contrarian’ nature. ‘Although I may sound very English, I am very very Scottish,’ Rankin says. ‘I’ve got something called “thrawn”, which is a Scottish word and which means I have an absolute problem with authority.’ It shows. Is this why Rankin chose a career where he could be his own boss? ‘I went into photography for a few reasons,’ he explains. ‘The first was that I kind of thought I'd be good at it before I did it. The second was down to where I went to college.’ Rankin attended Brighton Polytechnic, initially to study accountancy, like his mother, due to a talent for maths during his school years. ‘When I went to my residence I was lumped in with all these art students, and they were all like: “What the hell are you doing accountancy for? That’s not who you are at all.” And they really made me question myself. Up until that point, I hadn't really had anybody telling me that I was creative.’

Once the fuse was lit, there was no stopping him. ‘The minute I picked up a camera, I went: this is what I want to do,’ he says. No one else in his family was artistic, bar a little drawing occasionally carried out by his mother: ‘I was the first in a way and it was the best thing that could have happened to me, because I was a blank canvas.’ His girlfriend at the time, Samatha, was studying fashion. She showed him Peter Lindbergh’s photography and Patrick Demarchelier’s pictures of the model Jeny Howorth in ELLE magazine. ‘I thought they were amazing, seductive pictures — and beautiful,’ he recalls.

There was one problem: his name. Like Zendaya, Prince and Madonna, Rankin is known only by one name now, but this was not always the case. ‘I've got such a shit second name: Waddell,’ he says. That had to go. He got his first camera (a Ricoh) aged 21. ‘Frankly I’m not the biggest fan of being photographed or filmed myself,’ he says ‘but now it comes with the territory.’ He is currently offering a free service for up-and-coming photographers, where he gives advice after looking at their portfolio.

As well as skills with a camera, to be a photographer, Rankin thinks a certain noseyness is required. ‘You have to be really interested in the person you're working with. You kind of need to fall in love with them a little bit [this part I took as a compliment, as Rankin has in fact photographed me] because you've got to be their biggest fan, in a way.’ This was the case for him when it came to photographing the Royal Family (his fondness for them is the least Scottish thing about him, he says). ‘King Charles is a very thoughtful, very sweet guy,’ Rankin recalls. ‘Prince William was quite young when I met him, but he just seemed like a good guy to me.’ The stand out member of the royal family was Elizabeth II: ‘She was absolutely extraordinary. One of my favourite things, photographing her, was the power that came through the door. It was like, a wave just going over the top of me like: “Fucking hell, what the hell was that?”, and she had a really great sense of humour.’

Royals aside, his work is constant — and varied — from Rankin Live, where he takes photos of the general public (and which he will be running again this December) to a campaign for P&O Cruises, to work for luxury fashion houses and covers for publications like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar — in addition to the work he still does at Hunger. ‘I do say no to things,’ he says, ‘but I don't tend to bring my prejudice into it. I mean, I started one of the coolest magazines in the world [Dazed], so once you've done the coolest thing in the world, when people say: “This is cool,” I'm a bit like, “I'm sorry. I don't really like this formulaic idea of what's cool or not.” I remember when I left Dazed, I had wanted to do a shoot with Lady Gaga, and I was told by the team at Dazed, “She's not cool.” Then six months later they did her.’ Coolness in the industry is, Rankin thinks, all just ‘smoke and mirrors’.

Unusually, he is welcoming of AI, which has garnered him a fair bit of criticism from fellow creatives. His magazine and accompanying exhibition, both titled FAIK Off, featured AI-generated images and texts that questioned the future of human creativity. His Hunger cover with Jason Isaacs was a photograph of his that he enhanced using AI. He doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of him and has a get-on-board or miss out approach to the new technology. ‘I like to be liked, but I don’t sit at home at night worrying about what people say about me.’

He’s no longer impressed by the innate beauty of models (he has dated a few in his time), as he is used to being surrounded by beautiful people courtesy of his job. There is one exception: his model wife, Tuuli Shipster — who, in the biggest claim to fame I’ve ever heard, was one of the women dressed up as sexy Santa in Bill Nighy’s spoof music video in the film Love Actually. In the film, the music video is a direct parody of Robert Palmer's 1986 music video ‘Addicted to Love’.

‘What’s crazy, is when I first started taking photos, in 1988, I remember once being in a dark room listening to the radio and some guy phoned in. The DJ asked him: “What’s your claim to fame?”, and the man said: “I am going out with one of the girls in the ‘Addicted to Love’ music video, and she’s become my wife.” I remember thinking: “What a lucky bastard”.’

He insists that what drew him to Tuuli was not her beauty but her personality, ‘her light’ as he calls it, although he does mention that when they first met (on the set of an intimates campaign for Elle MacPherson) it was because he walked in accidentally when she was getting a spray tan naked, which I imagine didn’t put him off. Either way, he is clearly obsessed with everything about her. His assistants took their wedding photos and they were, understandably, ‘really really nervous about it’ but ‘they came out great,’ Rankin says. They live together with their four dogs — an elderly whippet called Beans, a mutt called Mavericks, a whippet cross called Squidge and a Chihuahua cross called Bandit, in London’s leafy Hampstead Heath — both Tuuli and the dogs are constant subjects of Rankin’s photography.

Your aesthetic hero

God, I like so many people's art, so it's impossible for me to answer. I just really love lots and lots and lots of things. I have a very diverse taste in art, and I think the thing that's important for me when I look at anything visual is that I feel something which is generally the aesthetic, which makes me think something at the same time — that's when I get really excited. I remember seeing Damien Hirst’s Away From the Flock, which is a which is a little lamb in formaldehyde, and just seeing it and going: 'That's extraordinary,' because it made me look at something that I've looked at before in such detail, but at the same time, it made me think about death in the most profound way.

A possession you’d never sell

I've got a lamp from my friend. I'm very friendly with Heidi Klum, and I did a book tour with her, because we did a book together. I was in this space in the West End, doing this event and signing books. We had dinner there afterwards and there was this lamp that was almost a Sphinx-like monkey holding a bowl and I absolutely love that lamp, because I love monkeys, and the next day it turned up at my studio. It was about £3000 but it was the event space’s lamp, so she must have just said: “How much for the lamp?” Now that is cool. I love it. It sits in my sitting room. I’d hate to ever lose that.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed. I would suggest that, because it's essentially a book that is trying to teach you to learn from your mistakes. And we all make mistakes. I read it, and I was like: ‘Shit — that's one of the best books I've read that really helped me reassess myself.’

An exhibition that has really impressed you

David Hockney’s Lightroom, because I saw it recently and it was clear that I love photography just as much as he loves painting.

The last thing of note you bought for yourself

I tried to buy a bike for myself, as I’ve got really into cycling, and I went to a shop called Evans in Kings Cross to buy a bike and they didn’t serve me for 30 minutes, so I left.

Your favourite painting

I mean, I have to say Damien [Hurst], because he’s been kind enough to paint me a painting. It’s the most amazing painting ever — and I look at it every day. It is one of his spin paintings and an incredible piece of work.

The music you work to

It’s really interesting, because we tend to get people to choose what they want to listen to, because it's about making them feel comfortable. The really good models will use the music as a way of being able to perform, because it's quite performative — it's a bit like being on a stage and dancing. If it was me having my photo taken I would probably choose something by the Rolling Stones, because it always gives me a kind of lift.

The last podcast you listened to

Either The Rest is History, The News Agents or The Rest is Politics — I listen to that a lot, but I haven't been listening to it a lot recently because it's just quite depressing at the moment. My go to would be The News Agents, because it's well assessed, and the presenters are all BBC trained, so they're all very good at it, but I like The Rest is History, as well, because I like their relationship, and I like Alistair [Campbell] a lot too.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

No one would make a film about my life, but I’d really love this kid that I photographed recently, if it was me young. I photographed Saoirse Ronan’s boyfriend, Jack Lowden. He looks a little bit like a better-looking version of me, and he's got that kind of Scottish thing. If I had to choose someone to play me, I'd choose him, also I think he's an underrated actor.

The items you collect

I don’t really collect anything, but I am a terrible hoarder, which my missus is really pushing me to work on recently. I think I collected stickers when I was five, six years old. I used to write to people asking them to send me stickers, but that's the only thing I've ever collected.

The best present you’ve ever received

The floorboard that my wife and I met on, when we did a job for Elle Macpherson’s intimates. The guy that owned the location that we did the shoot in when we got married, gave it to us as a present. We've got it in our bedroom, and it's a really lovely piece of wood, actually.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

My wife.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Chateau Marmont, every day of the week, because it's the only hotel that really is still rock and roll. They don’t tell you not to do stuff. There's some hotels where they pretend to be rock and roll, but make you sign a contract saying you won't have a party, whereas at the Chateau Marmont you’re kind of encouraged to have a party. And there are parties going on all over the Chateau Marmont whenever you're there, so it's one of the best hotels I've ever been to. It's not necessarily the most luxurious, it's almost sort of frozen in the 1950s, in a way, but it's brilliant. When you go there you always meet someone interesting, something's always going on, so I love it, and I just have got so much love for the way they keep it the same. It also smells amazing — like clementines.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

My dogs, they get me up because they wake me up, so you have to walk them. It's the best form of exercise that you can have, having dogs, because you have to walk them, and you're really letting them down if you don't.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I had a meal which wasn’t memorable because of the food, but it was memorable because of the people that came. It was Liam Gallagher, Patsy Kensit, Elvis Costello and Cait [O'Riordan], who was Elvis Costello's partner, who used to be the bass player in The Pogues, and it was one of the funniest and most rock-and-roll meals I've ever been to. It was with me and those four, and then Steve Dagger, who was Patsy's manager and Gary Kemp's manager. It was super feisty, and I'll never forget it. It was one of the most nuts things I've ever experienced. I mean, they're all lovely. I love all of them individually. So I love Elvis, I love Liam, I love Patsy, but I don't think they all loved each other. It's so funny. I even got taken out by a big security guard because it was so rock and roll. I can’t tell you the reason why.

Rankin is running Rankin Live this December, where members of the general public can have their photo taken by him. For more information on Rankin Live and how to book, visit Rankin's website.

The first thing Matt Pritchett does when I meet him is apologise. ‘Sorry to meet so late, I’m a little ball of anxiety until I send my cartoon in,’ he says as he picks me up from reception at The Telegraph’s impressive offices in London Victoria. It is 6pm on a Monday, and he has just submitted his day's work. Matt has been the newspaper’s in-house cartoonist since 1988. He is better known simply as ‘MATT’ — the sign off he chose at the start of his career. Beloved for his daily jokes accompanied by characterful drawings, it is clear, as he walks me through the mostly empty newsroom, that he’s pretty much a part of the furniture.

As he should be. Matt has an MBE for services to journalism and has won the British Press Awards’ ‘Cartoonist of the Year’ numerous times. Press Gazette also inducted him into their Hall of Fame as one of the most influential journalists of the past four decades in 2005. His new book The Best of Matt 2025 is out now and will be celebrated by an exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London from November 10-15.

His office is scattered with pens, pencils and sketchpads and the walls are plastered with newspaper cutouts — all cartoons, none of them his. ‘These are by New Yorker or other magazine cartoonists. I cut out my favourites, just to remind me what a funny cartoon looks like,’ Matt explains. He sits with one booted foot resting on his desk, in worn blue jeans, a navy jumper and a blue shirt. Wide-framed tortoiseshell glasses rest on the bridge of his nose and a smile is never far from his lips. It wouldn’t surprise me if Matt had been born in this office, and raised on a diet of newspaper clippings and crossword clues, he looks so at home.

A Londoner through and through, Matt grew up in Borough and creativity, it seems, runs in his family. His grandfather was the short story writer V. S. Pritchett and his father is the Telegraph columnist Oliver Pritchett. ‘He’s my hero,’ Matt says. His sister, Georgia Pritchett, is a screenwriter, best known for her work on Succession and his eldest daughter, Edith Pritchett, is a cartoonist for The Guardian. ‘We talk about cartoons all week,’ he says, ‘and her stuff is so different from mine, and so brilliant. I’m just very proud.’ What did he feel when she got the job? ‘My first thought was she saw my life and just thought, “This looks like money for old rope”.’ He has three other children: two girls and a boy. ‘It’s my wife’s fault, she’s from an enormous family and all of her siblings had children. They’re sort of like rabbits, or something.’ Another daughter is a jewelry designer who lives in Brussels, he also has a son who works in IT in Yorkshire and his youngest has just finished a degree in Edinburgh.

As a little boy his career ambition was not to be a cartoonist, but a bus driver. ‘I would only answer my parents if they address me as ‘“bus driver”. So if they said “Matthew” at supper obviously it was a no-go until they addressed me as “bus driver”.’ He remembers newspapers being plentiful around the house, courtesy of his father’s work, and recalls reading lots of comic books. ‘I definitely read Snoopy and was given Snoopy annuals and Snoopy books which I loved, and the first time I saw New Yorker cartoons I remember thinking they were pretty special.’ The magazine Punch was also a big influence.

After giving up his dreams of becoming a bus driver, Matt studied three separate courses at Central Saint Martins in London. ‘I started off sort of convinced that I wanted to be a graphic designer,’ he says. ‘It was a three year course, and at the end of the first year, I went to the principal and said: “Look, I've made a terrible mistake. I don't want to do this, I want to be an illustrator.” Then, I went to the principal at the end of the second year and said: “I don’t want to be an illustrator, but I’m convinced I want to do film.”’ After a final year studying film, Matt took on work experience at the BBC as a fourth camera assistant ‘which really is just carrying boxes’. He absolutely loved it, but when full-time positions came up he could never land a job, and it left him disheartened. He was, at the time, moonlighting as a pizza waiter, not out of any great passion for pepperoni but ‘because I had to pay to live’. That’s when he heard that the magazine the New Statesman was accepting cartoons. This changed everything.

‘I just thought maybe I could send them a joke,’ Matt says, sweetly. ‘I mean, I had heard that a magazine might pay about £60 back then for a cartoon, and I was living in a friend’s room, and my rent was 30 quid, and I thought: “If I just thought of one joke a week I could live”.’ It was a desert island joke — ‘you have to do one if you’re a proper cartoonist’ — and the New Statesman loved it. From then on he was obsessed, all thoughts of being a bus driver, a graphic designer or cameraman four forgotten. ‘I was just completely hooked. I went from newsagent to newsagent checking to see if it was in every copy of the magazine, I was so thrilled. From then on I didn’t want to do anything else.’

He ‘rather prematurely’ gave up his job at the pizza restaurant, aged 23. ‘Then I didn’t get anything in for a couple of weeks.’ Eventually, he started contributing to The Telegraph’s diary column, dropping off a joke a day and occasionally getting to provide a cartoon to go with an article inside, before he was hired by them full-time. ‘I still love doing it, but if it has a drawback it is that everyday you have to think of a new idea… so I am always terrified about thinking about the next one.’

His wife, Pascale Smets, a Belgian former fashion designer who now runs a shop in Norwich, had also attended Central Saint Martins, which is where the pair hit it off. ‘She said, “Oh, I’ve got a fashion show and I know you like photography, so will you come and take photos of my fashion show?” I should have seen the red flag that she would just be getting me to do things for her for the next 41 years — which is pretty much how it’s been,’ says Matt. ‘I stole her from Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen,’ he adds. ‘He’s now a great friend of ours.’ His wife, it seems, is a great asset to Matt’s life. ‘She’s amazing. Everyone who meets her then loses the ability to make any decision for themselves, because she is so decisive, so you ask her about everything. We had an au pair who once asked her: “Am I hungry?” My wife told her: “You want a bowl of soup.” So she had one.’

Matt is a self-described ‘creature of habit’. ‘Before Covid I would get in at the same time every day, and read the papers in the same order each morning,’ he says. Then disaster struck and work from home was necessitated. ‘I thought: “I just can’t do it. It’s going to be a different desk and different everything” — but actually it turns out I can do it.’ Furthermore, Matt discovered all the time he thought he was spending in the office doing vital research by speaking to the journalists in the newsroom was actually just ‘gossiping’. ‘I thought I was working but I was actually just finding out who had a super injunction and which celebrities were up to disgraceful things’. He now comes in just three days a week, splitting his time between London and his home in Suffolk.

He delights in the silly and, despite people’s preconceptions about what it must be like to work for a right-wing newspaper, tends to try and shy away from drawing anything political. ‘People always think that, working on The Telegraph, I'll be told that things aren't right wing enough. But in 37 years, I've never, ever been told that — they just want it to be a good joke. He doesn’t consider himself to be right wing, ‘but I think my wife considers me to be. It sort of depends what subject you’re talking about.’ Matt was a remainer when it came to Brexit, but he used his work to poke fun at both camps.

The hardest thing he’s ever had to draw came when there was a terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly magazine, in response to cartoons they published which depicted Muhammad. A lot of cartoonists were killed. ‘I usually never, ever do slightly serious cartoons, and I wasn't going to do it,’ Matt says. ‘And then I thought it feels a bit like a cop out not to do something about it. And I still don't really like doing serious things, but I did feel I had to do something on that.’ His career was ‘nearly ended’ early on when he drew a sketch of Mary on a donkey during an ambulance strike with the caption “Couldn’t you have got us an ambulance?” For this, he got a lot of backlash in the post — it is worse now with social media as ‘you get a reaction immediately’, yet he still reads the comments under his work every day: ‘I can’t stop myself.’

His favourite thing to draw, especially during this time of the year, is Guy Fawkes. ‘I love drawing Guy Fawkes. I don't know why I love Guy Fawkes but I always look forward to Guy Fawkes because I've just done so many jokes about him,’ Matt says. ‘This year, because of the mansion tax, I did a joke about him blowing up his own house, so there always seems to be an angle you can use. That's one of my best.’ The thing he thinks is the cutest thing to draw is his dog, Reg. ‘I do love drawing talking animals,’ he says. He idolises the New Yorker but would never submit anything because he just wants to look at it for pleasure. ‘If I submitted something and then they turned it down, it would just ruin the fun of looking through it.’

Your aesthetic hero

It would be my wife, because she chooses everything in our house. She tells everyone in our family what to wear, what clothes to have, and she can even, in a restaurant, tell me I don't like a meal. She just makes all the decisions, and they're always right.

The last thing of note you bought for yourself

A snooker cue. I play snooker obsessively. I'm terrible. I've decided it's not my fault, it's the snooker cue. If I get a different, more expensive snooker cue that will sort it out.

Your favourite painting

I am afraid to say I can't think of anything more interesting to say than Monet, because it's the honest answer. I'd probably have a Monet snow scene, because I remember very clearly doing A-level art and one of the subjects being a snowy scene. My art teacher said to me: ‘On no account, Pritchett, attempt this’. I think whenever I see Monet paintings now, I think my art teacher was right. I couldn't have done that.

A book you found inspiring

There's a book called Agent Zigzag, which is by Ben McIntyre, and I think about it all the time. I don't know if it's inspiring, because he was such a rogue this chap, but, from page one it's absolutely gripping, and it's got everything I love in it: it’s got spies and love affairs, and he double crossed everyone in his life. So I think I'd have to say that.

The music you work to

I have a dark secret, which is that I’m a pretty big country music fan. My two favourite singers are sisters: Allison Moorer and Shelby Lynne.

A possession you’d never sell

My snooker table, I think. I also inherited a picture from my grandparents, a Matisse print. I don’t think it’s worth coming to burgle my house for, but it’s two women lounging on day beds and it’s an absolutely beautiful picture.

An exhibition that has impressed you

One of my absolute cartoon heroes, a french guy called [Jean-Jacques] Sempé. I was in a little French town one summer and they had an exhibition of his work. I almost had it to myself and I had just chanced upon it. They were just the most beautiful cartoons I’d ever seen.

The last podcast you listened to

I'm a bit of a sucker for The Rest of Politics. It's a classic, like saying Monet. What I should really say is that my favorite painting is by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart and that my favourite podcast was by Monet.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I might take some paints, actually. I haven't done it for ages, but I do quite like doing painting. I do threaten that when I quit work, I'm going to take up painting and just give my children and friends bad art. For every birthday or Christmas they’ll get another landscape that they don’t want.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The Today Programme. I do wake up thinking: ‘What on earth am I going to draw today?’ so it’s 50% panic and 50% interest.

The items that you collect

I don't think I collect anything. That is one sort of obsession I don't have. I do always, when I see something great that makes me laugh — a cartoon — cut it out and stick it on my wall at work.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

My wife, when she's trying to be nice to me, said that as a young man I looked a tiny bit like John Cusack. Unfortunately you can see me, so you know that isn't true.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Ett Hem in Stockholm. It's designed by someone who actually taught my second daughter at the design academy in Eindhoven, who's never forgotten, and it is absolutely gorgeous. But there are lots. Now our children have grown up we sneak off for city breaks.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

Probably a tasting menu. I’m a sucker for a tasting menu because actually, given a menu, I am very unadventurous, and in fact, I just say to my wife: “What am I going to choose?” and she will tell me what I'm going to choose. But actually, a tasting menu where you get stuff that you wouldn't have picked is the best, and we’ve had some fantastic ones — the best one was probably at Dôme in Antwerp.

The best present you’ve ever received

My wife was driving in London, and they had these width restrictions things, and there was just a big gap in between them, which should have had a gate, but the gate was open. So my wife was driving, and just thought: “Well, it's much easier to go through that great big gap there.” So she went through, and she was photographed by the cameras that they have everywhere, and she was so funny about it. It made me laugh so much that my daughter, Mary, had it framed. I got it for Christmas, it’s by my bed. It always makes me laugh when I see it.

Matt's new book The Best of Matt 2025 is out now and will be celebrated by an exhibition at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London from November 10-15.

‘I always wanted to do something in art history that hadn't been done before, I guess, but I didn't know what it was going to be,’ says Katy Hessel. The 31-year-old art historian, writer and curator splits her time between London and New York and was named on Forbes’s infamous ‘30 Under 30’ list in the arts and culture category in 2021. She is probably best known for her Sunday Times bestselling-book The Story of Art Without Men, an examination of art made by women from the 15th to the 21st century, for which she won the Waterstones Book of the Year award. Her Instagram account, The Great Woman Artists, has 462K followers and has spawned a podcast on which Katy has interviewed Jenny Saville, Tracey Emin and the Guerilla Girls, to name just a few.

Her new book, How to Live an Artful Life, is ‘an almanac of sorts,’ she says. Each page is dedicated to one day of the year and features a quote from an influential artist or writer (such as Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Marina Abramović), plus Katy’s thoughts, reflections and creative insights. Today’s quote (November 4) comes courtesy of Virginia Woolf and is paired with notes on how to think about ‘the memory of language’ and a task for the reader — to ‘imagine a palace of words’ and write down the ones that would live in it.

‘The book was designed to show the reader how they can apply that thinking to their life. What I love about artists' words — I mean, I’ve been interviewing them for over a decade now — is that while they are often in relation to their art, they’re also so much about life,’ she says. ‘I love this idea that actually artistic thinking is so important because it applies to every single job that there is. Whether you're a politician or an accountant, you always work creatively, whatever you do.’

Katy was born in 1994 in north London. Her mother, a psychotherapist, and father, who works in property, sent her to the prestigious Westminster School. ‘It was just absolutely amazing,’ she says, ‘and I never really take anything for granted.’ Highlights included Art History classes inside the nearby National Gallery and the chance to observe London’s skyline from the roof of Westminster Abbey (which is attached to the school).

When Katy was 17 she worked at Sotheby’s, as an intern, and then at 18 at the Victoria Miro Gallery, manning the front desk. ‘I wanted to be close to it and I wanted to know how it worked,’ she says of the art world, ‘but I always thought people who wrote books were sort of [out of reach], I never thought that I could be one of them, ever.’ Did she always want to write? ‘Absolutely not,’ Katy says. ‘I was a terrible writer.’ However, her daily Instagram posts on great female artists gave her the space to practice.

Despite her route into writing, Katy is concerned about AI and electronic devices: ‘So many of us look at the world through our screens and forget to pay attention to the world outside. I sort of wrote [the book] for myself in lots of ways, because I was finding that I was just being constantly distracted or, you know, imagination just seems to be outsourced by AI, and actually, that's completely not the point — the creativity is about the joy and the doing.’

She is endearingly modest about her inclusion on Forbes’s ‘30 Under 30’ list. ‘It’s just so lovely to be recognised and art history is often dismissed, so I hope my work brings people in,’ she says. Ultimately, she wants ‘young people to feel like they belong in museums’. She thinks we are lucky that they are free in this country, so that everyone, regardless of their financial situation, can experience world-class art. And she shows no signs of slowing down. The writer has another book coming out in 2027, and a children’s book based on The Story of Art Without Men (for 8-13 year olds) coming out next year.

Your aesthetic hero

I have a few. One of my heroes, just generally, is a mythographer called Marina Warner, and I love her house because it has more books than bricks in it. I think that's such an amazing way to live. And in terms of art, I love the collector, Pauline Karpidas. I'm also sort of weirdly obsessed with noughties decor. So I just love the River Cafe [in Hammersmith, London] and Ruth Rogers’s aesthetic.

The best present you’ve ever received

Recently Bella Freud [the fashion designer] gifted me a suit. We did a sort of art history summer school together, and we both wore matching, different-coloured suits — she wore blue, I wore pink. That was a pretty great gift.

A hotel you could go back and back to

I’m currently in New York and I always stay at a place called The Manner in SoHo. I love it, it just feels like home.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Not that I would ever compare my looks — because she's absolutely beautiful — but people do say maybe our hair is similar, so I think probably Daisy Edgar-Jones.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

Life gets me up. It's always so exciting. I spend my life looking at art and I am so lucky. You know, it might not last forever, so at the moment, it's definitely life and art and writing and seeing as much as possible.

The items you collect

I’m an art collector. I run a residency every year for young artists, and have done since 2018, and I've collected pieces by all the artists who've done my residency. My flat is just filled with art, but everything has a personal story. I know every artist personally, whose work I have in my flat.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

Speaking recently, I actually think my best meal of 2025 has been at The Devonshire [in Soho, London]. I had the scallops, beef, and then the prawn cocktail and — oh my god — their sticky toffee pudding, which was the best thing in the world.

The last podcast you listened to

The last one was one I'm really obsessed with at the moment called Song Exploder, where they basically interview musicians about why they wrote songs and how they wrote them. Honestly, it's just so interesting.

What you’d take to a desert island

I would take a piano. I would take my friends. I would take maybe something for a party — a speaker, maybe a barbecue — and then some games, probably Monopoly Deal.

A book you found inspiring

For me, it's got to be The Lonely City by Olivia Laing. I read it when I was 21 and it really actually changed how I saw art, but also it opened up the possibilities of how art could be written about. The concept is that it looks at the loneliness of New York through the eyes of a few different artists, like Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, David Wojnarowicz and Henry Darge, and it basically just showed me that there are so many different ways of writing about art, which I just loved. It sort of gave me permission to write how I wanted to, because I always thought that you had to write in a certain way, but actually you don't. You can find your own voice.

An exhibition that has impressed you

This is a very hard question to answer, but one exhibition that completely amazed me this year was ‘Leigh Bowery!’ at the Tate Modern. I had no idea who he was and I just loved it. I loved it for its energy, and I had never really experienced something like that before. He was an iconic figure in the 1980s and was so groundbreaking, and what I loved about it was that it was just so fun. Afterwards, I just wanted to go dancing. I literally called my best friend after and we went dancing all night because I was so excited by the exhibition.

A possession you’d never sell

I have all these notebooks from when I was a teenager. They're art diaries, leather-bound, and I wrote little art reviews in them when I was younger. I'd never like to part with them because they're very special to me.

The music you work to

I listen to Philip Glass when I work, but also when I don't work. It just sends me to another place, and I find it so beautiful as piano music. You're in a dream world when you listen to it and it has no voices, so you can't be distracted by that. It also reminds me of certain times of my life.

Your favourite painting

I feel very bad that it's actually not a woman, but How to Live an Artful Life does include men as well, so I think that's fair enough. I absolutely adore The Tempest by Oskar Kokoschka, who was around in Vienna at the turn of the century. For me, it just sums up the tumultuousness, but reality and also the romance, of love. It’s of two figures, Oscar Kokoschka and his then-lover, Alma Mahler. He's awake and she's asleep, and they're on a sort of cloud, and it shows how, with love, how you can totally be enraptured by a cloud and be in another world, and it feels so incredible. But then there's also the reality of it, and I think he just sums it up so well. It's so romantic. So that's probably my favourite painting. It's not by a woman, but whatever, it's fine. I've spoken about women a lot.

Katy Hessel’s book ‘How to Live an Artful Life’ is out November 6, 2025. You can pre-order it here.

Jessie Burton is wearing a leopard-print top, a chunky necklace upon which hangs three large flowers and a yellow headscarf in her short brown hair, when I meet her for tea at The Coral Room in The Bloomsbury Hotel, London. Her appearance suggests a flamboyance and a loudness — one that her character does not match. The woman across from her has just been taking a work meeting on Zoom without headphones, she informs when I arrive, with a look that screams: ‘The audacity!’ The author, despite her animal prints and bold jewellery, is quiet and reserved, a self-proclaimed ‘worrier’ — she would never take a Zoom call in a public place. She is also clearly still not entirely comfortable with the attention her books have garnered her. Which is a lot, by the way.

Her debut novel, The Miniaturist, set in Amsterdam in 1686 and inspired by a doll's house she saw on holiday on display in the Rijksmuseum, appeared on shelves in 2014 to mass acclaim. It was the focus of a furious bidding war between publishing houses at the London Book Fair in 2013 and went on to become an international bestseller. It won the Waterstones Book of the Year Award in 2014 and, by 2016, had sold more than one million copies in 37 countries. A number one Sunday Times bestseller and a New York Times bestseller, it was no surprise when the BBC commissioned a two-part television adaptation which starred the Golden Globe award-winning actor Anya Taylor-Joy and which aired in 2017. Jessie went on to write The Muse, The Confession, The House of Fortune — and three children’s books.

Born in Wimbledon, the author is a south Londoner through and through. ‘It was that sort of quite classic zone three of the tube map, suburban, lots of green spaces, but lots of things to do,’ she says of her upbringing. Jessie is an only child. Her mother, a teacher of business studies, and her father, an architect then ceramics restorer, met in Battersea, where they are both from, age 14, and have been together since (they are now in their 80’s). Jessie describes them as ‘bookish people’.

‘I didn’t grow up in a household where everyone talked about their feelings very much, and I think that’s quite a rich breeding ground for a novelist, because you fill in the gaps, and you fill in the questions and the silences and the suppositions with your own stories,’ she says. ‘My parents were very affectionate and loving towards me, but they didn't ever really burden me much with their emotional lives, and I think, possibly, my curiosity about the way people are ... does stem from a childhood of feeling like you're on the outside looking in.’

As a young girl she excelled at school, confidently performing in plays, recitals and poetry readings. ‘I love performing,’ says Jessie, whose first ambition was to be an actor, not an author. ‘I didn't have great dreams of being a published writer, I had great dreams of being a famous actress — and when I say famous, I don't mean just famous for the sake of famous. I mean successful.’ Fame, I come to understand when it comes to Jessie, is the thing she finds most troubling. ‘What I loved about acting was participating in the world as someone else.’ she says. ‘I was me, but I was hidden to others, whereas when I write a book, all of me is in the book in one way or another, and then I go on to a stage at a literary festival, and I don't have a part to play. I found that really, really exposing.’ Having to talk about your creative process, the author says ‘is like killing it. It’s awful’. I won’t lie and say this didn’t put an elephant shaped dent in the flow of our interview because, well, it did. Jessie does not like to do exactly what she is doing with me. Revealing herself to the general public.

Passionate and curious, the author prefer that her work speaks for her. Jessie thinks publicists assume she is happy to be a front-facing author because of her acting background, but it has led to burnout in the past. ‘I invariably think I’m going to disappoint them,’ she says of guests at book events where she is speaking. Jessie is many things: thoughtful, tenacious, passionate, curious and, at times, nervous, but disappointing is definitely not one of them. She went to Oxford University (Brasenose College) the first in her family to got to University straight from school and the only one to attend Oxford. While she admits that she met many smart individuals while at University, of some of her classmates Jessie is less complimentary. ‘Not that many of them were very clever,’ she says, of those who waltzed easily into jobs on Fleet Street and in the Houses of Parliament because ‘someone’s Godfather’ has pulled a few strings. ‘It’s shocking. I’m not impressed by an Oxbridge education,’ she says.

After Oxford, where she studied English and Spanish, she went to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama — an equally tricky establishment to secure a place at. While trying, and often succeeding, to make it as an actor Jessie picked up temp positions, as a PA, often for private equity companies and always on short-term contracts — so that she could nip out for auditions (and out of a deep-seated fear that she’d get stuck there someday full-time).

She acted at the National Theatre, in the ensemble and always waiting for a bigger part that never came. She was 27 when she started to write, ‘not from a place of great inspiration and happiness, but a place of rage and restriction’. While on a creative course with the publishers Curtis Brown her writing intensified. ‘I tried to do the quietest jobs possible so I could write at work and make it look like I was working, which I did,’ she says. Eventually, she finished The Miniaturist. ‘I would have been really happy with 5,000 copies in hardback,’ the author says. Little did she know.

In a moment of incredible serendipity she had an on screen cameo in the TV adaptation of book. And yet, after all of her success, she remains utterly down to earth. She still loves a charity shop bargain and shies away from lavish overspending. And, she’s incredibly humble. ‘People don't read that many books a year, and if you're the book that someone's reading out of their one or two books a year, that's amazing, and so I never take that for granted,’ she says.

She turns back to me, while exiting The Coral Room, with a worried expression on her face. ‘Oh, I didn’t pay for that…’ she says, indicating her cappuccino. Unlike many others in her position, it's clear that the author still does not expect anything to be handed to her on a platter — not even a coffee.

Your aesthetic hero

Katharine Hepburn, Diane Keaton and Cate Blanchett. Women who are quite clearly still individuals and who, despite being part of the world of fashion or movies, have kept their distinctive personal style.

The last thing of note you bought yourself

I was recently in South Africa, and there was this amazing ceramics stall — they work with women in communities, teaching them ceramic skills, and then they make these jewellery dishes and soap dishes in the shape of women with little babies on their backs, holding hands, and they're so beautiful. I bought a whole ton of them, and that would be the thing that I've bought most recently that's given me the most pleasure.

Your favourite painting

One by Dame Laura Knight, a self portrait of her painting a nude that's at the National Portrait Gallery. It's just so brilliant because, not only is she a woman painting, but she's painting a naked woman. It’s like she's had access, finally, to the life drawing classes. And it's very playful, but it's also very powerful.

A book you’ve found inspiring

I'm always inspired by so many books, but a big book in my life, that practically everyone's read, is Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. I think because when it first came out that was the year I started writing again, and her use of the past in quotes, her historical understanding, her understanding both of how things were not like they are now, and also how they are universally similar, was so powerful. And just the interiority of her characterisation and her humor in it, and the fact that it always just felt like this was a scene that was almost tangible and just around the corner was very inspiring to me when I wrote The Miniaturist, because I wanted that to capture that same sort of immersive, sensory experience that she gave me with that book.

The music you work to

I absolutely don't work to music. I could never. I couldn't even have piano music or classical music or white noise. I can't. I need the silence of the tomb, the silence of my mind.

A possession you’d never sell

One thing I know I would not part with, and also I think nobody would want as much as I want them, is the original illustrations by Angela Barrett for my children's book, The Restless Girls. She is such a wonderful, wonderful artist. Some of her brushes are just one hair, to do the whiskers on a rabbit or the glint on a car badge. She did the most stunning, practically miniatures, for my first children's book — so fine that they actually had to be magnified, which is normally the opposite. So they give me so much pleasure to look at, even now, and I remember that feeling — that alchemy of something I'd written being painted. I think that would be something I wouldn't sell.

The last podcast you listened to

I really don't listen to podcasts. I think I have listened to about three in my entire life. I have the radio on. I like Radio Four, I like Radio Three, sometimes Radio Six, and that kind of scratches that itch.

The actor that would play you in a film of your life

Who would play me? I honestly don’t know. I think I need to age a bit more to find the woman who would play me and do a few more exciting things I think, before it merits a biopic.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

If I went with my family, we’d take a bucket and spade and some crisps and some cold beers. If I went on my own I’d take my record player, my records, a notebook and a Welsh tapestry rig for when it gets cold under the stars at night.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

‘Lee Krasner’ at the Barbican. She happened to be Jackson Pollock's wife, but was a painter in her own right, and it's a classic story of her actually being really amazing, but because she was married to Pollock, she got slightly sidelined. I remember going to that and the paintings were absolutely insane.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

The prospect of some hot buttered toast downstairs with the radio on — I am a person of simple tastes — and the thought of having a hot cup of tea with The New Yorker crossword. That’s all I need.

The items you collect

I do collect ceramics and pottery, which I think comes partly from my dad, but also beautiful handmade artefacts. So I love copperware and pink luster ware and agate ware.

A hotel you could go back and back to

There’s one called Mama Ruisa in Rio de Janeiro, and it's run by this guy called John Louise. It was just the most beautiful, low key but elegant and chic place to hang out. You felt immediately stylish just by being there in it, but you didn't feel self conscious. And they had a big fat grey fluffy cat, I can't remember her name, but she would break into your hotel room at 4am and I loved it — it was one of those kind of hotels.

The most memorable meal you’ve eaten

At a quite famous steakhouse in Buenos Aires. It was so good that a tear did actually come to my eye.

The best present you’ve ever received

For my 40th my husband got me a first edition of one of my favourite children’s books, The Traveller in Time. That was a very thoughtful gift.

Jessie Burton's children book 'Hidden Treasure' is out in hardback now

Lotte and Jessie met for coffee at The Coral Room in The Bloomsbury Hotel in London

‘I actually did always want to be a writer,’ says Elizabeth Day, the author, journalist and podcast host of the immensely successful How to Fail, where she’s interviewed everyone from Katie Price to Salman Rushdie and Rory Stewart. ‘I remember, aged four, loving books and wanting to be an author, which is quite a weird thing for a four year old to think about, especially coming from a family that has no authors in it.’ Elizabeth’s novels include Paradise City; The Party; Magpie and now her Sunday Times bestselling thriller One of Us — a state-of-the-nation novel that satirises the upper classes and serves as the sequel to her novel The Party.

Born to ‘voracious readers’, Elizabeth grew up in a house full of books. Her mother, a primary school French teacher who later became a magistrate, taught her to read and write before she went to school. ‘I just knew, early on, that stories were this amazing way of escaping into your imagination,’ she says. The first book she became obsessed with was Meg and Mog, a children's book by Helen Nicoll which follows a witch and her cat. The book that really shaped her came later. She remembers her father, a surgeon with the NHS, reading her Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. ‘It showed me just how alive you could make a character, because Anne Shirley, to me, still feels like a friend.’

Aged four, the family moved to Northern Ireland from England for her father’s work. ‘I went to a secondary school in Belfast for two-and-a-bit years and I didn't have a good time there, because I speak with a very English accent, and at that particular time in Northern Ireland it was quite a tricky time to have this kind of accent,’ Elizabeth says.

She left after attaining a scholarship to Malvern Girls' College, a private day and boarding school in Worcestershire. ‘It was the saving of me,’ she says, describing the public speaking and debating she pursued whilst there as being vital to her self-confidence.

She was a straight-A student who went on to attend Cambridge University. ‘All of my family, more or less, have gone to Cambridge. So there was also a sort of unspoken sense that if I didn't apply, I would probably be disowned. I'm only vaguely joking,’ says the author, whose parents met at the university and whose older sister had already been there when it came around to Elizabeth’s time to apply.

She studied history at Queen’s College, which was also where her journalistic career began, at Varsity, the student newspaper. After graduating with a double first — ’genuinely one of the proudest achievements of my life. I don’t even care if it comes across as a humble brag’ — she landed a job at the Evening Standard after a week's work experience saw her get an exclusive scoop for the paper. Women who worked for the Ministry of Defence in the army were getting boob jobs at the tax payers expense, Elizabeth found out. Her reward was an interview with the then-editor Max Hastings, who offered her a job on the Londoner’s Diary column.

On her first day she was sent to a ‘glamorous but scary’ party at Spencer House in Westminster where Sir Dennis Thatcher, the businessman and husband of Margaret Thatcher; Lady Victoria Hervey, the socialite and former girlfriend of Prince Andrew; and Willian Hague, the former leader of the Tory party, were in attendance. Her job? To get a quote for the next day’s paper. ‘It was incredibly intimidating,’ she says. ‘It was also a really fun place to work. And in those days you could still smoke in the office and go for long boozy lunches — so there was that as well.’

After a year, Elizabeth left the Evening Standard to work for The Sunday Telegraph as a news reporter. She went on to write for ELLE magazine, The Mail on Sunday and The Observer. The worst piece she ever wrote for a newspaper (not the Evening Standard, she hastens to add) was when she was asked as a reporter in her twenties to try out an orgasm machine in her rented flat in Sheperd’s Bush. ‘I didn’t even think twice. I was like: "Absolutely. I want to be taken seriously as a feature writer. Slap the electrodes on me.”’ Looking back ‘that was a low point,’ she says.

The writer has been married twice, first to the journalist Kamal Ahmed, who was the business editor of BBC News, who she wed in 2011 and subsequently divorced. Her current husband is Justin Basini, the CEO and co-founder of ClearScore, the personal finance company. ‘I'm tremendously proud of everything that he's achieved, but he's someone who is much more private than I am, and that's also been really great for me. I think I actively wanted someone who wasn't in the media,’ Elizabeth says.

She met Justin in her late 30s. ‘I just got so lucky that in a field of dregs, I eventually was matched with this prince of a man,’ she says of the somewhat lacking dating scene of the time. She has spoken openly during the past year about her struggles with IVF, miscarriage and her eventual acceptance that she will not be a mother. She’s made peace with it, she says and the Elizabeth I meet is chatty, passionate and enthusiastic. A person with fingers in many pies and who seems, despite the pitfalls she’s faced along the way, to be living her life now exactly the way she wants to be.

Your aesthetic hero

Cindy Crawford. I just love her so much — in all ages.

A book you found inspiring

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe because it made me understand how you could have years as a journalist and then transform that journalistic training into this fizzing, kinetic narrative, and write something that was so exciting to read.

The music you work to

I don't generally work to music unless I am in a particularly noisy cafe, and then I will listen to Mozart's Requiem — basically the only piece of music I can listen to and write alongside.

Your favourite painting

The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte. It hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and it shows three men sanding, essentially by hand, a wooden parquet floor in what looks like a Parisian apartment, and they are stripped to the waist. That's not why I like it, but it's so beautifully rendered for many reasons. One is the perspective and the foreshortening, so it's sort of technically gifted, and it has this atmosphere of camaraderie and labour well executed, and I just find it a very compelling image. I remember going to the Musée d'Orsay and seeing it with my then boyfriend, Rich, who very sadly died in 2004, and so the other reason is that it always makes me think of him, as well.

A possession you’d never sell

I don't consider my cat a possession, but I would never sell Huxley. The possession I would never sell is a cigarette case that belonged to my grandfather that I sleep with on my bedside table, and it's inscribed with his initials, the date 1948 and Cairo, which is where he was posted as a diplomat. And it's also where my grandparents got married. I was very close to my grandfather, and loved him a lot, and so it's a very special object for me.

An exhibition that’s really impressed you

The one that I keep thinking of is the Marina Abramović retrospective that was at the Royal Academy a couple of years ago. An exhibition, if it's done at its best, is like the contents of an artistic genius's mind, and that's how it felt. I went with my friend and I remember there was one point where, for one of the art works, you had to walk through a naked man standing on one side and a naked woman standing on the other side, and it was an uncomfortably small aperture in which to get through, and you had to choose whether you’re facing the man or woman. My friend chose to face the man, so well done her.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I heard someone recently on Desert Islands Discs who gave this answer, and I kind of want to steal it, which was a cinema that would play every single film I had ever watched, but I would take it one step further and ask for a cinema that plays every single film that has ever been made.

The best present you’ve ever received

My parents gave me a moped for my 21st birthday — that was pretty amazing. I was still at Cambridge, and I remember having to ride it from Cambridge to London in extremely cold weather with none of the gear and no idea, and I had to stop regularly to have hot chocolate so that I didn't get hypothermia. But after that, it was in London, and when I worked at the Evening Standard I used to moped to work every day.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Villa San Michele, which is in Fiesole outside Florence. It is a Belmont hotel, and it's exquisite in every single way. We were lucky enough to spend a couple of nights there last August. It just was not long enough, although too long for our bank balance. It's so beautiful that I cried when I walked in. It was just stunning. It's in this former monastery and the food is amazing — best caponata I've ever tasted.

The last podcast you listened to

An episode of Watch What Crappens, which is a podcast hosted by two phenomenally funny gay men who do reenactments of Real Housewives episodes.

The last thing of note you bought yourself

A piece of art, a Maggi Hambling painting, because I like to buy a piece of art with every book that I publish with some of the advance so that I have something tangible that reminds me that I wrote a book and it got published.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

My cat meowing very loudly at 6am — sometimes 4:30am — claiming that I am going to forget to feed him, which is incorrect. My husband is not a fan of that, but he is also very good, generally speaking, at being the one to get up.

The actor that would play you in a film of your life

It’s hard to say without it sounding like a massive humble brag, but Keira Knightley or Rachel Weisz, because I actually just think they're both, obviously phenomenally beautiful brunettes, which I am not saying I am — I aspire — but also great actresses.

The items you collect

I keep all of the pieces that I write and interviews that I’ve done — oh, and books. I love physical copies of books and I suppose I collect an inexhaustible mental archive of reality TV programmes, as well.

The most memorable meal you’ve eaten

I love LA and I love having dinner at the Chateau Marmont and there was one particular dinner there with Justin. We had been dating for six months, I was in LA for a month on a book deadline, and he came out to see me for four days and we went for dinner.

I had their salmon, which is delicious, accompanied by their truffle fries, also delicious, and a glass of red. I would have had a glass of Californian Pinot Noir, because I'm obsessed with that particular kind of wine, and I don't care that you're not meant to have red wine with salmon, because it was delicious. That was the first time that we said that we loved each other, and so I've got a real memory of that.

'One of us' by Elizabeth Day is out now (Harper Collins, £18.99)

John Illsley’s art studio is a mess. There is paint everywhere: scattered haphazardly in tubes, dashed up the walls and, of course, on his many finished works.

There is, however, hiding in the corner of the room, a keyboard and a guitar. Despite embracing a second career as an artist, the former bassist and founding member of the rock band Dire Straits is unable to leave music behind entirely.

In fact, when we meet, it is in the run up to his upcoming tour, The Life and Times of Dire Straits, a homage to his time with the band which celebrates the 40th anniversary of their best-selling album, Brothers in Arms.

Now 76, John shows no signs of slowing down. In addition to painting and playing music, he is also a beekeeper, ‘The bees were a 70th birthday present,’ he says, gesturing to his beekeeping suit which is flung over the back of a chair in the corner of his studio.

The guitarist-cum-artist-cum-keeper-of-bees also owns a pub and restaurant, the East End Arms, in the New Forest, where he now lives with his wife and three dogs — black labrador Jeff, Portuguese podengo Bunny and little Dolly, the parson terrier.

He grew up in a little town just outside Leicester, called Market Harbour. ‘We had a very simple childhood, which was in the countryside,’ he recalls, over coffee around his dining room table in his impeccably stylish open-plan living room. His father was a local bank manager and his mother a housewife with four children. ‘It was a fairly strict, normal sort of upbringing in the 1950s when I think England was still recovering from the war a little bit.'

‘Growing up, you didn't really know much about the outside world, because there was very little communication. You had the Nine O'Clock News, and then the TV turned off. We didn’t have much news apart from what we were fed by the BBC.’

What changed his world view was, aged around 11-12, the radio. On his brother’s crystal radio set the two boys managed to tune into Radio Luxembourg, and it altered the trajectory of John’s life. ‘They were playing music on there which I’d never heard before, and that’s what really excited me,’ he recalls. Tunes like Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel and Chuck Berry’s Rollover Beethoven struck a chord, and from that point onwards dragging the young musician away from instruments became the unfortunate challenge of his parents and schoolmaster. ‘I can’t stop John playing this infernal banjo,’ read one letter from the latter to the former. ‘He won’t stop, even if I keep taking it away from him and into my study, he finds one somewhere else.’ His schoolwork suffered, but John was undeterred.

His first guitar was a Rosetti Lucky 7 and its cost him all of his pocket money. ‘I discovered many years later that that was the first guitar that George Harrison had,’ he says. ‘It was a terrible thing, almost impossible to play.’ But play, he did, and when his brother formed a school band with no vacancy except for a bass guitarist, he taught himself to play that too.

He left school with ‘not much apart from art A-level'. His mother and father ‘got pretty fed up with me sitting in the kitchen with my friends, smoking and drinking coffee all day,’ and so he was obliged to get a ‘proper job’ — as a timber importer, in Bexleyheath, for three years. ‘I kind of enjoyed it. It really opened my eyes, because living in a middle class household in the middle of the countryside in Leicestershire you didn't really know much about other people.’

John subsequently decided to do a degree in Sociology at Goldsmiths College in London, and lived in a council flat in Deptford. He saved on the rent by enlisting a roommate: David Knopfler, the brother of Mark Knopfler — who went on to become the frontman of the Dire Straits.

‘I’d played with a lot of bands up to this point, and nothing really happened, but suddenly I sat down with Mark, and I thought, this is different. I really felt this was going to be something.’

They played their first gig under a different name: the Cafe Racers. It took place at a punk festival, on a patch of grass between their flat and the railway line and the pair had to run the electricity from the flat to the stage. ‘We were in dire straits,' says John. 'We were literally doing gigs for £20 and a pint of beer, and the PA system was costing us £15 to get in.'

When his grandmother died he inherited £500 and the band convinced him to spend it on their demo tape. A song — Sultans of Swing — aired on DJ Charlie Gillett's Sunday radio show and later broke into the top ten in the UK and US charts. Other hits such as Money for Nothing and Walk of Life soon followed. Their 1985 album, Brothers in Arms, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and is the eighth best-selling album in this country's history. ‘I look back at all the gigs we were doing and wondered, “How on earth did we do all that?”. The workload was crazy, and we never stopped. We had a few breaks, you know, in the 1980s, but we didn't really stop until 1992.’

After the band broke up, John put down the bass guitar and picked up a paint brush. ‘I dedicated myself completely to painting,’ he says. He has had shows in galleries in London, Sydney and New York; his style is distinctive and colourful, much of it abstract — though guitars creep in from time to time.

He recently donated a piece to a Woolley and Wallis auction (October 26), to help raise money for the charity Horatio's Garden. Now the two hobbies compete for his time — but apart from art and music, I wanted to know... what else drives John.

Your aesthetic hero

Musically, heroes wise, there’s so many of them, but I would probably put Bob Dylan at the top of that list, followed by Lennon Cohen, followed by Van Morrison. And from a painting point of view, Picasso’s the master.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Probably the very first one I saw with my art master in 1967. It was the Pierre Bonnard exhibition at, I think it was the Royal Academy, he took a train load of us. It really opened my eyes to how to look at a picture, the way he talked about them.

What’s the last thing of note you bought yourself?

This sounds very mundane, but a pair of trainers from the company that Roger Federer started. They’re just amazing, I have four or five pairs and I live in them. The great thing about them is they have no laces — it’s total genius.

Your favourite painting

Pink Angels by Willem de Koonig, but I mean anything by Picasso from the rose period or the blue period is also up there.

A possession you would never sell

I would never sell my 1961 Fender Jazz Bass guitar, which has been with me for 45 years and which I haven’t changed the strings on in 25 years. That’s the one I use to record with. That will be with me forever.

A book you’ve found inspiring

There’s two — The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse and Any Human Heart by William Boyd.

The music you work to

In my art studio it can vary from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto in C minor to The Beatles, the Rolling Stones or ZZ Top and anything in between.

The last podcast you listened to

We usually listen to The Rest is Politics with Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell, they were talking about the Gaza peace deal and its potential or survival or not — that was the last one I listened to.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

Well, the funny thing is, if I ever get recognised, I often get recognised as Bill Nighy, and taxi drivers say, ‘All right, Bill' and I think, ‘I know what you're thinking but I am not him’. But he has this condition with his hands, so he’d never be able to play the bass like I do. So not him. You would need someone at least over six foot and… you know… good looking.

What you'd take with you to a desert island

I’d take a guitar with me. Actually, I’d probably take a box of paints.

What gets you up in the morning

Usually the dogs I need to walk. I never get up later than 7am most mornings.

Anything you collect

I collect paintings. I love buying them. I’ve probably got too many, and I should stop as we’ve got no room left and they’re stacking up a bit.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Sanders hotel in Copenhagen.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever had

Probably recently in Copenhagen at this place called The Pescetarian. It’s the most extraordinary restaurant. It is ridiculously expensive, but the food is just extraordinary.

The best present you’ve ever received

Recently, my wife bought me the most beautiful painting by an Irish painter called Diarmuid Kelly, it is a picture of an apple. It’s tiny. We went to the exhibition, and I was looking around, thinking, ‘I might buy one of these pictures,’ and I got to this apple, I thought, ‘I'm going to buy that,’ and there was a sticker on it already. ‘That’s really annoying,' I thought. 'This is really the one I wanted, 'and it was my wife who had put the sticker on before I could get to it, because she just knew that would be the one that I’d want.

John is among 70 artists donating works to raise funds for the charity Horatio’s Garden. The online auction at Woolley and Wallis auctioneers is on until October 26.

ABBA, IKEA and Martin Brudnizki. Sweden has given this country many great cultural staples. Martin’s internationally acclaimed business, Martin Brudnizki Design Studio (MBDS), is 25 years old this year and has worked on Broadwick, the luxury hotel in Soho, the Vesper Bar at The Dorchester and Annabel’s in London — that’s right, the one with a unicorn with golden hooves in the stairwell and 500kg onyx crocodiles for bathroom sinks. That was Martin.

He was also responsible for the placing of a Frank Gehry crocodile statue in London’s Sexy Fish restaurant. I am sensing a theme here. Outside of the UK, MBDS has worked on Soho Beach House in Miami, The Beekman in New York and Nubeluz at the Ritz Carlton. He’s not the face of high-end hospitality, but he’s designed the backdrop to pretty much all of it.

His work, whilst universally in demand, divides the critics. The Times once described him as having ‘a sort of multihued, Sir John Soane-on-acid vibe which, some might sniff, is a bit too ostentatious to be considered “English”’. However, Wallpaper* magazine has called him ‘one of the best restaurant and hotel designers of his generation’ and he has been praised numerous times in Architectural Digest and beyond.

Born in Stockholm in 1966 to a German mother and Polish father, Martin studied business for a brief spell, worked for a time as a model in the Big Apple, and then headed to the American University in London at the age of 23 to study interior architecture and design in 1990. He went on to work for the architect Philip Michael Wolfson, the renowned galleryist David Gill, and David Collins, once London’s most famous designer. He set up MBDS in 2000, before opening a New York studio in 2012 and a furniture and accessories shop, And Objects, in 2015.

He now employs more than 100 people, and has designed the interiors of more restaurants, bars, hotels and private members' clubs than you could shake an artistically chosen stick at. ‘Our focus on detail isn’t just an obsession,’ Martin has said, ‘it’s our trademark.’

Is this what he thought he’d end up doing when he was young? ‘Oh no,’ Martin says. ‘I had no idea, but my mother is very creative, and she worked as a visual merchandiser in a fashion store in Stockholm, and later on retrained in interior design,’ he adds, clarifying his main creative inspiration. ‘All of that was quite important, and it taught me a lot, for example: to have respect for your environment. You know, even on a Wednesday, you set the table properly for dinner, and all of those things. Enjoy life, enjoy it, but don't be sloppy — basically, that was the lesson.’

Until the pandemic, he lived between the UK and New York, travelling once a month to America, but now he is UK based. Having sold his flat in London earlier this year, he lives in West Sussex in Binderton House full-time with his partner Jonathan Brook, an art advisor who also works with MBDS. ‘He's great with creating the stories and the narratives of our projects,’ Martin says. He has previously described Binderton House as ‘an Arcadian fantasy of English country life’.

His book, My Life in Colors, will be published later this year. ‘Several people have asked me to do a book over the years, but I never thought I was ready, until now,’ he says. ‘The common denominator of my work is colour, and it’s become a very interesting lens through which to look at my projects. I really wanted to call it “The Language of Dreams”, because that’s what colour is to me — that’s what I do. I like to dream up ideas and stories.’ Martin’s dreams, it’s clear, are many, but what about his consuming passions?

Your aesthetic hero

Probably my mother, because she’s taught me everything that I know — the whole approach to life — because design is beyond being a beautiful finished space with art hung and furniture and accessories. It's beyond that. It's how you live that sort of life.

A book you've found inspiring

A couple, but definitely A Curious Friendship by Anna Thomasson. It's about Rex Whistler and his good friend, Edith Olivier, and it's just a beautiful story. I always knew the story of them, but it puts a bit more meat on the bones. It's about the relationship of a middle-aged woman and young man during the 1920s and 30s, up until the Second World War. It’s a very sad story, but there is a lot of joy in it, too. Sean Hewitt’s novels are also great, as is Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, which is about the author Thomas Mann.

What music do you work to?

I never work to music, but I like to relax to music, especially classical. Or, if I am having a few drinks on a Friday night, I might do a playlist of Ivor Novello and some Bossa Nova, and a bit of Noël Coward thrown in for good measure.

Your favourite painting

I have this piece by the Italian painter, Giorgio Di Chirico, and it's a lithograph in its original frame from the 1940s. It’s called Horses on the Shore, and it has the most beautiful scalloped oak frame — it's a beautiful piece of work.

Which possession would you never sell?

My father fled from Poland in the 50s, and he took with him the family heirlooms, which are quite worthless to have, in value, but I would never sell them — because they’re a memory of him.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

‘Rex Whistler’ at The Salisbury Museum. I loved that exhibition; it was on last year. ‘Glyn Philpot’ at the Pallant House Museum in Chichester also stood out. Simon Martin, who’s the curator and director there, spent years finding these paintings in different places, and I even helped him with a few. This exhibition was of all of these paintings that had never been seen together before, and it was beautiful to see. And the ‘Rex Whistler’ exhibition was extraordinary, because he died during the Second World War, so his life was cut short, but he still created such an amazing body of work.

What would you take to a desert island?

A book and a cushion, to rest my head on.

The best present you've ever received

My watch, which is a Breguet, is my favourite. The love of my life — my boyfriend — bought it for me. It’s a very classical watch with a gold frame and beautiful detailing. It’s a simple watch, but I love it so much. It was my 50th birthday present.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Hotel Endsleigh in Devon, it’s owned by Olga Polizzi, and I love that hotel — we go back to it all the time. Especially as we go to Devon a lot, we have friends down there and go once or twice a year.

The last podcast you listened to

Either The Rest is History, or a new one called Voice from the Hall, which is hosted by the architectural historian Oliver Gerrish.

The last thing of note you bought yourself

I actually just bought a sculpture by John Skelton, it’s a torso made of wood and it’s very abstract and very beautiful. He did things in West Dean, which is just around the corner from where I am, and he did things as well in Chichester Cathedral, so we sort of felt that was very apt.

What gets you up in the morning?

My dog Zenon, he’s a whippet and the joy of our lives. He gets up because he wants a dental stick in the morning, it’s sort of his habit. So I do that, let him out, then he comes in and goes back to bed and stays there until about 11am.

Who would play you in a film about your life?

Oh, gosh, my life isn't interesting enough for anyone to play me. I'm afraid I wouldn't know, but it would probably have to be some tall (Martin is 6 foot 3 inches), blonde Swedish actor. People can come to their own conclusions about who that would be.

Do you collect anything?

I collect everything and nothing. Just things that I like really. It doesn't have to be something of great value either, just something that I like. I don’t have an urge to collect one specific thing.

Your most memorable meal

A restaurant that I absolutely love is one on Hydra, which is an island about an hour and a half from Athens in Greece. It’s called Xeri Elia, and it’s an amazing restaurant — the food is delicious. It’s family owned and they've worked there forever, and the food is just simple Greek fare. It was actually a favourite of Leonard Cohen in the 60s. Normally we order a whole fish, which is put on the table, a jug of white wine, a Greek salad and feta grilled with honey.

My Life in Colors: By Martin Brudnizki is out now.

Alison Weir is potentially the nicest woman in publishing, but she is certainly the biggest-selling female historian in the UK (since records began in 1997). The sheer volume of her output is impressive in itself, with 32 titles to her name — a mixture of non-fiction and historical fiction. At 74, she is showing no signs of slowing down: today is the publication date of her latest offering, Queens at War.

Born Alison Matthews in 1951, the author was brought up in Westminster, London. She was educated at the City of London School for Girls, North Western Polytechnic and then at the University of North London where she gained her teaching qualifications (History, of course). She later gave this up due to her dislike for the ‘modern teaching methods’ her school was employing and went on to work in the civil service, writing in her spare time.

Her parents had split up ‘rather acrimoniously’ by this point, which came as a ‘bolt out of the blue’ for Alison. ‘Things went wrong,’ she recalls. ‘They’d had a very happy marriage.’ Her mother was delighted when she decided to become an author (‘No one was more thrilled when I got into print’). Her father, less so. ‘He was really into ancient history,’ the author says. ‘He wasn't that keen on medieval Tudor history and we didn't have an easy relationship.’

It was in 1971 that she met her husband, Rankin, ‘an absolute diamond’ at a Battle of Britain Dance at Kensington Town Hall. Her mother took her, unwillingly: ‘I’m not going to be seen dead ballroom dancing, aged 20,’ Alison thought at the time. The pair went on to have two children together — a son and a daughter — and moved around before settling in Surrey. Sadly, Rankin passed away two years ago. ‘We had 52 wonderful years together. He was a civil servant, who did very well, but he actually gave up work to support [my writing career, later on], because we had a son who had special needs and needed support,’ Alison says, her grief for him still palpable.

It was in 1989 that her first book, Britain’s Royal Families, was published. ‘I’m still pinching myself,’ she says. She had spent 22 years working on it, and just shy of 20 working on another, only to have it consistently rejected for being too long. ‘I got so demoralised, I didn’t write or finish anything for a long time after that,’ she says. It was later published in 1991, becoming her second book (The Six Wives of Henry VIII). Her biographies of Katherine Swynford, Isabella of France, Elizabeth of York, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Princes in the Tower followed — many of these written while she was running a school for children with learning difficulties.

Then came fiction. Alison has written wildly popular novels centring around the Medieval English Queens, Henry VIII and each of his wives. In fact, it was Katherine of Aragon who kickstarted her love for history at the age of 14. ‘My mother marched me into a library and said: “Get a book”,’ Alison recalls. ‘I saw this very lurid book with a very lurid jacket called Henry’s Golden Queen and I devoured it in two days. Of course, it was quite sexy for its time, and I’d never read a book like that before.’

‘I thought, did they really go on like that in those days? So I rushed off to the school library when I was next at school, to the history books, to find out the truth. And yes they really did go on like that.’

It is the Tudor period that truly holds her heart, as well as her carnal imagination, and as Alison’s career progressed so did her book titles. The rather plainly named Britain’s Royal Families gave way to more titillating titles such as Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England; Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess; and, my personal favourite, Mary Boleyn: The Great and Infamous Whore.

However, being a writer in the popular history genre does not come without its critics: namely academics, of which Alison herself is one. The historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, in one book review, chastised Weir: ‘Tudor England is more than royal wardrobe lists, palaces and sexual intrigue’. However, the author’s book-sales tell a different story, and Kathryn Hughes wrote in The Guardian in 2005 that ‘to describe her as a popular historian would be to state a literal truth — her chunky explorations of Britain's early modern past sell in the kind of multiples that others can only dream of’.

Who is your hero, when it comes to the written word?

My favourite author of all time is Norah Lofts, she died in the 80s, but I’ve got all 63 of her books, and I find them absolutely inspirational, and I was instrumental in getting some of them back into print.

What’s an exhibition that has really impressed you?

The David Bowie exhibition at the V&A Museum. It was absolutely incredible. I went with my daughter, she had to drag me out.

What’s the last thing of note you bought yourself?

A very nice dress from Monsoon.

What’s your favourite painting?

I think Giovanni Bellini’s The Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan, which is in the National Gallery. I love that, but I also love the paintings of Holbein, especially his portraits, so it's hard to have a definitive favourite painting. I could say I love the one of Anne Boleyn in the National Portrait Gallery, but it's not great art. It's more what it evokes for me.

Which possession would you never sell?

My wedding and engagement rings, they’re the most important things.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Antonia Fraser's Mary Queen of Scots, the biography, because that came out when I was 18, and it was a total inspiration. I wanted to be the new Antonia Fraser, and I still have every respect for her — she's a great historian and a very nice lady.

What music do you work to?

I don’t work to music these days — it’s too much of a distraction — but when I’m dealing with emails I put my playlist on, which I spend a lot of time curating, because I’m crazy about music. John Lennon, the [Rolling] Stones, The Killers, ABBA, Creedence Clearwater Revival, David Bowie, Echo and the Bunnymen, Eric Clapton, the Electric Light Orchestra — that’s just a few examples. There’s 11,084 songs on this list…

What was the last podcast you listened to?

None. I’ve never listened to any, not even The Rest is History — I’ve done them but I haven’t listened.

Who would play you in a film of your life?

Rebecca Fleming, I like her, but she probably wouldn’t look like me at all, but a good actor can play anyone.

What would you take with you to a desert island?

Lots of books, Scrabble, a pack of cards and James Norton. Oh, and some wine.

What gets you up in the morning?

All I’ve got to do, but I do like a long lazy lie-in at the weekend.

Do you collect anything?

Yes, I collect a lot of books, I collect jigsaw puzzles — I like those, but I don't have time for them — I collect jewelry: I'm an absolute hoarder. And I collect the music of people I really like. I have a lot of CDs.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Château de Saint Paterne, near Alençon in Normandy, France. My daughter works for Mr & Mrs Smith, so she visits a lot of nice hotels and she recommended it. We’ve been back several times, I couldn’t praise it highly enough. That would be my go-to place.

What’s the most memorable meal you’ve ever had?

It was at the Lords Of The Manor Hotel in Upper Slaughter in the Cotswolds, and it's absolutely superb, and also very expensive. We've had family occasions there to celebrate something really special, like my daughter's 40th. The whole thing is a wonderful experience.

What’s the best present you’ve ever received?

Something that my son chose, a lamp for our 25th wedding anniversary.

Alison Weir’s latest book, ‘Queens at War', is on sale now. Alison will be speaking at Stratford Literary Festival, which runs from October 30–November 2. Book tickets and find out more information on their website.

Maria de le Orden’s clothing brand promises ‘sophistication’. Vivid fabrics shimmer and her feminine yet timeless pieces flatter the female form; only a woman knows how to make clothes like this. They scream ‘girlish fun’ and ‘professional elegance’ all at once: think maxi Claudine collars, ruching, and tasteful peplum detailing.

The origin of the brand started in Maria’s home city of Madrid, where she designed a collection of brightly coloured jackets that were beloved by her friends. Things took off on social media and Laura de la Révélière was recruited in 2019 to develop the project further. Maria, now based in Paris, also co-founded the chic fashion brand La Veste (which is French for ‘blazer’) along with Spanish designer Blanca Miró Scrimieri. She’s also the co-founder of Maison Ola, a luxury headwear and accessories brand.

But what are her Consuming Passions?

Your aesthetic hero

Dries Van Noten. His work is a masterclass in emotion through fabric — how prints, textures, and colour can tell a story without saying a word. I’ve always admired his fearless yet refined use of pattern and how he layers richness with subtlety. There’s something deeply intelligent and poetic about his vision; it feels like he’s dressing people not just for the day, but for a whole inner world.

The best present you've ever received

A handwritten letter accompanied by a surprise trip. It was the kind of gift that showed a personal touch, which to me is more valuable than anything bought from a store.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Alcuzcuz, in Málaga. There’s something timeless about it — lush, quiet, and effortlessly elegant. It has a real charm, the kind that doesn’t try too hard but stays with you. I always leave feeling calmer, as though I’ve been reset. The interiors, by Jaime Parladé — who was a friend of my family — bring an interesting mix of Andalusian tradition, colonial touches, and lived-in warmth. His style is layered and soulful, full of character and nuance. It’s not just a hotel, it’s a home with history, heart, and that rare atmosphere you can’t manufacture.

Who would play you in a film about your life?

Marion Cotillard. She has this emotional depth that feels both grounded and mysterious. I admire her ability to move fluidly between vulnerability and strength. She doesn't just play characters, she inhabits them.

What gets you up in the morning?

Breakfast and coffee. But, beyond that, the small rituals of the day: light filtering through the curtains, the first quiet moment before emails or meetings. There’s something sacred about those early minutes.

Do you collect anything?

Yes. Antique Compagnie des Indes plates. I'm fascinated by their history, their journey across continents, and the stories they carry in their designs. Each one is a little artefact of trade, taste and time.

Your most memorable meal

Zucchini pasta at Lo Scoglio, by the sea. It’s a simple dish, but unforgettable — the zucchini barely cooked, the pasta perfectly al dente, and everything tasting of sunshine and salt air. Lo Scoglio is a magic place: a family-run restaurant in Italy where almost all the vegetables come straight from their own garden.

The last podcast you listened to

A business podcast featuring Christel Heydemann, the CEO of Orange France. She was thoughtful and sharp with a clear vision.

What would you take to a desert island?

Dark chocolate, always — I’m completely obsessed with Hu chocolate, especially the one with cashew butter. A really good bathing suit would be essential — one that makes me feel both comfortable and strong, ready for swimming or just lounging in the sun. And of course, a wide-brim hat.

A book you've found inspiring

In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. It’s a small book, but it reshaped how I see beauty — especially the quiet, hidden kind. The way he meditates on light, shadow, and imperfection feels like an antidote to modern excess. It's understated, poetic and deeply inspiring.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

David Hockney’s show in Paris. It was exuberant and completely immersive. What struck me most was his ability to continuously reinvent his style and embrace new mediums, even digital ones, with childlike curiosity.

Your favourite painting

Something from Cy Twombly’s Bacchus series. They’re wild, red, and overwhelming in the best way. The energy is so strong — like the paint is moving. There’s something raw and emotional about them, almost like a shout. I love how they feel both ancient and personal, powerful but also strangely beautiful.

What possession would you never sell?

My two gold bangles, each engraved with one of my children’s names in tiny diamonds. I wear them almost every day, and they remind me of what really matters no matter where I am or what I’m doing.

What music do you work to?

Usually soft soul or jazz from the 1960s and 1970s. Al Green always brings warmth into the room, and Nina Simone’s voice is like an old friend — moody, complex, unflinchingly honest. That era of music has this grounding emotional quality that helps me focus, even when I’m surrounded by visual chaos.

James Thurstan Waterworth has given plenty of himself to his interior design company, including his middle name.

James’s aim, when he set up Thurstan in 2018, was ‘to create eclectic and original interiors true to the client brief and in keeping with their architecture and surroundings’. Since then, Thurstan has worked with both hospitality businesses and private clients and James’s work, transforming places into beautiful spaces, has taken him all over the world.

It is in predictably trendy Clerkenwell, however, that I meet him. It seems apt that his office is a stone’s throw from the Barbican, an icon of Brutalist architecture, beloved by many of London’s creatives. Nestled in The Charterhouse, a former Carthusian priory that was rebuilt by the Tudors, everything that surrounds the designer has been chosen for its aesthetic value — interesting and timeless — down to the elegant piece of slate that serves as a coaster for my glass.

Stacks of books, various antiques and fabric samples sprawl across the designer's studio, reflecting his eclectic — and stylised— tastes. His knack, it seems, is for making objects that have little relation of things come together, a skill he likely honed as the European design director at Soho House.

His work has taken him to the likes of Turkey, America and Spain and seen him work on Soho House Istanbul, Soho House Barcelona and, the trendy neighbour of Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, 76 Dean Street. He is currently working on Bradley House in Wiltshire, the family home of the Duke of Somerset and a Portuguese Symington property, belonging to the owners of the wine company and Port house of the same name.

This is a far cry from what he’d thought he’d be doing when he was growing up in Shropshire and attending an all boys boarding school. ‘Creativity wasn’t necessarily at the forefront of what they were pushing forward,’ he says, ‘but my sister used to work for a magazine house that had a couple of interior design magazines. She used to send them to me. Everyone had dodgy magazines hidden under their beds and I had my interior design magazines.

More traditional subjects were never his thing. ‘My brain doesn't work that way; reading and writing is still something I struggle with,’ he adds. His original plan was to study history of art, but his father told him it would be a waste of his time as ‘his brain wouldn’t cooperate’, so he applied to study interior design at Oxford Brookes. When he got turned down, he undertook a variety of work experience placements, followed by a six-month-long course at KLC School of Design in London, before he landed his first job at Martin Brudnizki Design Studio.

Creativity, it seems, is a family affair for James. His mother was an artist. His step-mother was an antiques dealer, and he spent many happy hours as a young boy in her shop, marvelling at the treasures stowed there. ‘She has the most amazing f***ing eye,’ he says. His father was a property developer, but ‘should have been an architect. He had to make money, so sadly he didn’t follow his dreams. I think he's vicariously living through me a little bit.’

The best part of his job? Fresh starts. ‘The beginning, so the conceptual side of it, is super exciting. A new client, new project, new building, new history, new location — it's all of these different things, and we try to treat each one like a totally different beast.’ That, and ‘traveling to parts of the world just to hunt for beautiful things’. Not a bad gig, by any means.

The designer’s personal tastes have clearly defined his professional career, so I was intrigued to learn what else he was passionate about...

Your aesthetic hero

Axel Vervoordt and Robert Kime. When I was in my late teens, they were my utter heroes. I was fortunate enough to meet both of them, very briefly. For me it’s their enthusiasm for furniture, for antiques, as well as architecture.

A book you've found inspiring

Nigel Nicholson’s Great Houses of Britain. I was reading it in a friend's house up in Yorkshire, maybe six months ago, and — it sounds quite basic — but it's not overly pretentious in terms of its wording and he actually breaks it down to just the houses. There are a really beautiful few which you can't visit too, which is quite nice to get to see.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

I wasn’t really expecting much from it, but I was with the kids and we saw one at Japan House, in High Street Kensington. It was about crafts in Japan and it was just very interesting, not huge, but very well put together. I’m a big fan of anything Japanese and Kyoto is my favourite place in the world — the food, the culture, they have this amazing Germanic mindset. Everything's on time, everything's clean, everything's incredibly well put together. Everything is an aesthetic thought.

Your favourite painting

My favourite artist is Roger Hilton. When I was around 22, I walked past one of his paintings in a shop on Fulham Road. It was a really simple chicken, one of Hilton’s later works from when he was bed bound and could only draw things he could see outside of his window. I totally fell in love with it and vowed one day that I’d buy one. Which I’ve done. It’s very basic, people might think I’m a lunatic, but I fell in love with his work.

What music do you work to?

We listen to a lot of world music in the studio. Particularly African, from the late 80s and 90s. There's a genre called Soukous, which I particularly like. It’s upbeat — nice and uplifting. That or some light piano, like Ludovico Einaudi.

What possession would you never sell?

The family got me a really lovely Carl Aubock. He made really beautiful objects — basically, rather than paper weights being solid, he would make an incredibly beautiful egg paper weight — that sort of stuff. Everyday things, really beautifully done. They got me a screw which, when you unscrew, is a bottle top.

What would you take to a desert island?

It would probably be a piano, because I never have time to play it. And, I reckon, it would keep me entertained, as much as one can be if you're by yourself.

The best present you've ever received

For my wedding present my wife gave me a 1960s Rolex, which has a really beautiful leather strap and a lovely simple face. It was a great present and the affiliation to the timing of it is special — I really cherish that one.

A hotel you could go back and back to

There’s a hotel in the south of France called Grand Nord-Pinus, which has a sort of bull fighting, 1960s, leather-chair-type vibe to it. It’s in the square. I went with my family a couple of times, and it's not far from the antique markets around there. That part of the world has a really lovely feel. Now they have the Luma too, in Arles, this tiny French village, which is amazing.

The last podcast you listened to

There’s a podcast called, Not Just the Tudors, which I love. I have a fascination with the Tudors and they’re particularly good on them. There’s a lady who runs it, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb — she's amazing at narrating it.

The last thing of note you bought yourself

Boringly, it would have been a Roger Hilton. The company buys quite a lot of antiques and paintings, so I buy lots of beautiful things, and some of it comes and goes from my house. So there's always lots of different things coming in and out.

Who would play you in a film about your life?

I guess someone like Andrew Scott. He's quite sensitive and an amazing actor. I’m not a macho-macho guy, and he’s probably a similar age to me and he’s quite subtle, but can show some anger if necessary. He could definitely play a more sensitive designer-type. But he would need to dye his hair, I guess.

What gets you up in the morning?

The literal answer is: my kids. They come in at 5:30am at the moment. But I'm quite good in the morning. I wake up, always — my wife might disagree — quite upbeat for what might come around the corner. Family aside, during the week, it's coming into the space and having an hour to myself in the office before anyone gets here. That's when I'm my most creative.

Do you collect anything?

I collect 20th century British abstract art — 1950s–70s — very much the British-St Ives ilk. I am also particularly interested in early Pyrenees, French, Spanish works — very simple 16th-17th century furniture which is very pared back. And early Italian and Spanish frames. I have an array of incredibly beautiful frames.

Your most memorable meal

My favourite restaurant is closed now, but it was in Barcelona. When I was living there working on the Soho House, there was a restaurant around the corner from where I was staying. It was like a more cost-friendly sister to a Michelin-star restaurant, and it was very simple Japanese grilled food. It was an open kitchen, super rustic, very stripped back, and the food was f***king amazing.

Intricate, colourful and joyous. Tess Newall's work can brighten up any room. Just ask Alexa Chung, who I spied posing on Newall's Instagram, in front of the artist's recognisable printed wallpaper. Alongside the aforementioned, Newall creates bespoke murals, furniture and handpainted homewares with a botanical twist at her studio in the South Downs, East Sussex, alongside her furniture-maker husband, Alfred Newall, with whom she shares three children. But being part of a creative power couple is just one of her many talents.

Brought up in East Lothian in Scotland, the designer travelled to Sri Lanka after leaving school to help with tsunami relief. It was this that inspired her to study archeology and anthropology at Oxford University. She applied to the course from a Sri Lankan beach. After graduation, however, perhaps the influence of her mother, Sally Oyler, the artist, took hold, as she went on to train as painter for theatre and film sets. In 2018 she establishing her own brand, and studio. She designed her first wallpaper in 2022, and the rest is history.

But what else is the artist passionate about?

Your aesthetic hero

Probably the decorative artist Peggy Angus. She lived in a cottage under the South Downs called Furlongs, very close to ours. Her philosophy was that art was an integral part of life, and that people should decorate the spaces they inhabit. She was a talented designer and every surface in Furlongs was decorated, be it the wooden stairs or the fireplace tiles or her hand-printed wallpapers. Local friends say that anyone who visited would be roped into helping her with painting and printing and gardening. I wish I could have met her!

A book you've found inspiring

I loved The Notebook by Roland Allen, which charts the history of the notebook as a tool for thinking and jotting down ideas and sketches. He gave a brilliant talk at The Linnean Society, illustrating how such a simple object has shaped our world in the arts and the sciences, from thinkers like Frida Kahlo, to Isaac Newton and Henry James.

I have just started Tirzah Garwood’s autobiography which is incredibly inspiring. Until recently she has been overshadowed by her husband Eric Ravilious, but she was a gifted artist whose life was cut tragically short. The book expresses a real humanity as she chronicles struggling to lead an artistic life amidst the constraints of family life and ailing health. She still managed to create an extraordinary body of work which is finally being given the recognition it deserves.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

Tirzah Garwood at Dulwich Picture Gallery was beautifully curated and showed the breadth and diversity of her work, from paintings and wood engravings to marbled papers, embroideries, patchwork quilts, and miniature paper collages of entire villages in box frames. It also showcased Spanish Lady painted in 1950, the final year of her life (below). I’m excited to see the Bardfield Murals exhibition at the Fry Gallery this month, with works by Ravilious and Bawden showing preliminary designs and studies for their murals. Their use of colour and pattern was wonderful.

What music do you work to?

An eclectic mix depending on my mood. I love upbeat Scottish and Irish folk music, like The Corries and Thin Lizzie. I grew up with my parents listening to Van Morrison, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and always go back to those. In my teens I listened to a lot of Oasis and Blur, so those still hold a fond place in my heart too!

What is the best present you've ever received?

Alfred, my husband, made me a giant wooden flower press, large enough to press the tallest wild poppies and cornflowers which grow in the fields around us. I picked and pressed some with my son during our first summer in Sussex six years ago, which now hang in frames in our bathroom. It’s a lovely memory to keep.

Your favourite painting

I adore an early Duncan Grant still life of flowers, which hangs on the sponged black walls of the Charleston Farmhouse dining room. The colours are so uplifting together, I could look at it for hours. We live very close to Charleston so I do visit it often.

What would you take to a desert island?

My box of watercolours and a sketchpad. I take them with me on most trips, and even just a quickly painted sketch helps capture the essence of a place, to remember it by. It should keep me busy on a desert island.

A hotel you could go back and back to

The Colombe d'Or in Saint Paul de Vence. In 1920 a farmer called Paul Roux opened a simple restaurant using his fresh produce. Artists and writers found refuge in the informal atmosphere, and often stayed in the rooms above. Roux developed an eye for the art of his guests, and began to offer them free board in exchange for work. Hanging on the walls are works by Picasso, Matisse, Chagall — a Calder sculpture hangs over the swimming pool! The hand-painted menu also remains unchanged, simple and absolutely delicious. It’s unfussy, authentic and absolutely perfect.

A possession you would you never sell

The prototype of our Botanica Mirror, which I made in collaboration with my furniture-maker husband. The design is inspired by Arts & Crafts joinery, and the artworks include wildflowers native to our home in Sussex. I love the idea of one of our children having it hanging in their own house one day.

The last podcast you listened to

I’ve been listening to old episodes in the Desert Island Discs archive while I paint. Highlights have been Whoopi Goldberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Maya Angelou and Keith Richards — as eclectic as my music taste!

The last thing of note you bought yourself

I recently bought a beautiful antique fabric remnant. It is an 18th century Chinese embroidered silk with an intricate trailing pattern, similar to one I once saw in the V&A Museum. I am building up a small archive of antique fabrics which will likely inspire future wallpaper and fabric collections of my own, which is exciting.

Who would play you in a film about your life?

Perhaps Saorise Ronan? I painted a hanging cloth for the press day of Mary Queen of Scots a few years ago, and spent the day in her and Margot Robbie's interview room. She was wonderful, and people told us there was a likeness. I loved her in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

Do you collect anything?

I am amassing quite a collection of painted plates, which perch precariously on mantelpieces and shelves all over our house. I love hanging them on the walls too. My favourites are from Quimper in Brittany and Deruta in Umbria, which I often find in local antique markets like Ardingly, or when we are traveling around Europe. I adore rummaging through a brocante.

What gets you up in the morning?

Literally, three children clambering into my bed and prizing open my eyes demanding I make them breakfast. Emotionally, the idea of being outdoors as soon as I'm able, whether a climb up the hill behind our cottage, or cycling through the open fields to my studio. The path has cow parsley spilling over it at the moment, it's heaven. I’m also lucky to love what I do for work. I feel very fortunate that people want my work on their walls, and I work with brilliant, inspiring people who I bounce ideas off every day.

Your most memorable meal

I recently had dinner at The Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, created by Egyptian chef Leila Gohar. It was truly a feast for the eyes — fountains filled with pomegranate seeds, and sculptures made from bread. I loved a dish called koshary, which is a traditional Egyptian dish of rice, lentils and pasta. I would love to learn how to make it.