June 22 2025

I was a crash test dummy for MeToo

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Johnny Depp on the Amber Heard

trials and the friends who froze him out
 22.06.2025
5 Matt Rudd
Help! I’ve lost my passport

6 Relative Values
Jordan Stephens from Rizzle
Kicks and his mum, Emmaluna

8 Mrs Amazon
Megan Agnew on Lauren
Sánchez: journalist, pilot and
Jeff Bezos’s bride-to-be

18 Disorder in court
Why are magistrates’ courts in
such a mess? By Emily Dugan

26
COVER: SOPHY HOLLAND FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. HAIR: MASSIMO GATTABRUSI. MAKE-UP: ROCKY FAULKNER. STYLING: PENNY ROSE

26 Buried treasures
Images of Ghana’s colourful
coffins by Regula Tschumi

30 COVER: Johnny Depp

Four hours, multiple drinks
and nothing off limits. The
actor talks to Jonathan Dean

37 Table Talk
Skye McAlpine’s speedy
puds, Adam Kay tries branch
three of Bubala, Will Lyons’s
best picnic bottles and Pete
Brown’s mid-strength beers

49 Fitness
How to get rid of back pain

50 Driving

THIS WEEK IN
Adolf Hitler poses with his James May likes the sound
chief architect, Albert Speer, of the Ferrari 12Cilindri
left, and the sculptor Arno
Breker for a propaganda film 58 A Life in the Day

1940
in Paris on June 23. France The EastEnders actress
had surrendered to Germany Michelle Collins
the previous day. Hitler took
a tour of the city but was © Times Media Ltd, 2025. Published and
unable to go up the Eiffel licensed by Times Media Ltd, 1 London
Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF (020 7782
Tower because the French 5000). Printed at Walstead Bicester Limited,
had severed the lift cables. Oxfordshire. Not to be sold separately

The Sunday Times Magazine • 3

 MAT T R UDD

Now, in which idiot-proof

place did I put my passport?
was on my way to the airport question — “Where did you

I
on Sunday when, quite sensibly, last have it?” — and, to my
I decided to check I had my astonishment, it helped. I last had
passport. It would have been the passport in this room yesterday
even more sensible to check morning. I had taken it out of my bag
before leaving the hotel, but because I didn’t want to lose it in the
hindsight’s a wonderful thing. city because I know what I’m like.
So is having a passport, which, at Of the people who are good at
that moment on that pavement losing things, there are those who
in Stockholm, I did not. just accept it and those who adapt.
Normal people would panic I have tried to adapt. With some
at this point but I’m not normal. success I have trained myself to
I always lose my passport and then, put my wallet and keys on the hall
a few minutes later, I always find it table the minute I get home. As
again. No cause for alarm. I took a a result I am proud to say that the
deep breath and had another look. frantic morning wallet-and-key
Still no passport. search is now an exception rather than the rule. I have
I tipped everything out of my bag and on to the a list on my phone of Where Weird Things Are. It says
pavement. Nothing, but I still didn’t panic. There are things like “rugby boot stud spanner next to shoe
people who are good at losing things and people who polish” and “shoe polish next to rugby boot stud
are good at finding things. I’m one of the former. Harriet spanner”. And when I check into a hotel I make a
is one of the latter. She knows where everything is at all mental note of where I put my passport.
times and it’s such an amazing skill that I enjoy testing This system relies on good recall, which, in that
her. I’ll say, “Do you know where the Euro plug is?” and sweaty, stressful moment, I did not have. All I could
she’ll say, “Fourth drawer, cabinet, shower room.” I’ll remember was that I’d put it “somewhere clever” where
say, “Have we still got that book about mushrooms?” burglars would least expect it — but the hotel room was
and she’ll say, “One’s in the green box in the loft and tiny and I’d looked everywhere, clever and not clever.
one’s in the office next to the book about bees.” The UK government website says it takes at least 48
Harriet was not in Stockholm and this was both good hours to process an emergency travel document. I tried
and bad news. It was good news because I could get on hard not to think about all the logistical repercussions
with the search without the eye-rolling. It was bad news of spending “at least” two more days in Sweden.
because if she was here, the passport would be as well. I ransacked the room again. Nothing. I looked at
I still didn’t panic. the bin. A flicker of a memory of a mental note. The
Obviously I must have left it at the hotel. I packed newspaper? Maybe I’d put the passport inside to outfox
my bag again and started running, not because I was the burglars and apparently myself. I grabbed it from
panicking but because if I didn’t run I’d miss the flight. the bin and shook it. No. I went back to the application:
So maybe panicking a little. The room was as I’d left it £125. Ouch. Plus a new flight. Ouch again. And hotels.
— tiny, sparsely furnished, not obviously containing Maybe one last look. And there it was, at the very
a passport. I went through the bedding, I shook out bottom of the bin. It had dived out of the newspaper,
the curtains, I looked in the mini-fridge and the bin. commando-style, and snuck under a Coke can at exactly
Nothing. I emptied my bag again. Still nothing. the wrong moment. In seconds I’d packed my bag again
Then I decided to panic. I pulled off the bedsheets, and was running. Could I still make the flight? I reached
flipped over the mattress, lifted up the cupboard and for my phone to check the time. No phone! Normal
the rugs. Then I asked myself the world’s most irritating people would panic at this point but … n

The gap between births of 800,000 girls were “missing” to fall to about 100,000 this
GOOD boys and girls is closing. from global birth registers due year. There are even signs that
CHARLIE CLIFT

The natural sex ratio at birth to the practice of sex-selective baby girls are now preferable

NEWS! is about 105 boys for every

100 girls, but in 2000 about
abortion, notably in China and
India. That number is estimated
to boys in western countries n
By Yasmin Choudhury

The Sunday Times Magazine • 5

 RE L ATI V E VA LU E S

Jordan Stephens and Emmaluna Boulting

The Rizzle Kicks singer and his mum on teenage fame, ADHD and dating one of Little Mix

Emmaluna Sandra be in the video?” Sandra is my best friend and

Jordan was an energetic, outspoken little boy. He was had never done any performing. I told her she just had
enthralled by tiny things. We’d do mad trips where we’d to learn the rap part. I said, “Look Sandra, no one’s
pinpoint the most ridiculous name on a map and then going to see it. Don’t worry!” Famous last words.
drive there from our home in Neasden, north London.
We’d end up in places called things like Eggs Tump. Jordan
Jordan was an extrovert but that didn’t mean he I was 15 the first time I was diagnosed with ADHD.
wasn’t a thinker. He struggled at school because he I was offered cognitive behavioural therapy but I found
was often trying to push the lesson twenty paces ahead. it quite patronising, so I stopped and my mum didn’t
I worked as a therapist, so I was familiar with ADHD. believe in treating it with medication. I think she’s
Jordan wanted to have an assessment but I was dubious more open-minded now about what medication can do.
— they don’t take into account the time of day, whether I was diagnosed again at 26. Growing up, I’d self-
someone’s just eaten or taken medication. Jordan was medicate with a drug I got off the internet and didn’t
up for it because he heard that you get some biscuits in realise I was overdosing. I was really creative then, but
a quiet room. He was really into biscuits at the time. never finished anything. I went to Margate after I came
Jordan is my only child and even if his dad, Herman, into some money and bought a house — just felt like it.
and I weren’t together, it was important to me that I was more hyperactive than other kids when I was
he maintained a strong connection with Granny V, young. I was kicked out of class a lot and had authority
his Guyanese grandmother, Veronica. I loved her very issues. My mum pushed the idea on to me that if
much. I come from a very dysfunctional family so that’s someone tells you what to do, you don’t have to do it.
where he got the grounding — the big Caribbean side. She’s massively anti-establishment, but she is quite
He was going to be a footballer — he was really good. a pacifist. Now I don’t agree with her ideas on not
The switch to music was interesting. Jordan entered fighting back or removing yourself from the situation.
a climate-change competition by creating a radio show I met Harley, my partner in Rizzle Kicks, when
where he was the DJ. He spent a few weeks at a youth we were four — my auntie worked for his stepdad at
climate summit in Osaka and sat three of his GCSEs
there. Screw exams at that point: life or conformity!
I have a real problem with the whole education system.
He did very little work for his GCSEs and managed to
When Jordan told me about his
get Bs all the way through. suicidal feelings it was tough to hear.
Jordan and I are close, so I was aware when he was
taking drugs. But I knew he’d come out the other side. But it was a relief he could tell me
I believe people go through rites of passage. My only
concern was exploitative leeches in the music industry.
If I had seen it spiral out of control and didn’t think
Jordan had the strength to deal with it, I’d have done
something. A lot of the time it was quite good if people
thought I was intimidating. I needed people to feel
that I wasn’t one of those mums who knew nothing
about the industry or who was thrilled by fame.
When he told me about the suicidal feelings he had
been having, it was tough to hear. But it was also a relief
that he could tell me. I suppose he knew that I wasn’t
going to have a dramatic reaction because I’ve done
suicide intervention training and worked with young
people in desperate situations. I don’t ring him every Main: Jordan, 32,
day but I do check in without being intrusive. and Emmaluna, 63,
When Rizzle Kicks did Mama Do the Hump with outside his house
Fatboy Slim, the label wanted a big-budget video. Jordan in Margate. Right:
was panicking that it involved air stewardesses and was at home in London
offensive. I said, “If you want to change it, you’ve got in 2001, when
to offer another option.” He said, “How about you and Jordan was nine

6 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 PORTRAIT BY MICHAEL CLEMENT

a record label — then we both ended up at the Brit ‘wagwan’. What if I told your parents?” I was, like, “Boss,
School in Croydon and started making music together
STRANGE take me home now. Chat to my mum, I dare you.”
in 2011. We made the Top Ten with our first single, HABITS They would drop me and my mum would say, “Yeah,
Down with the Trumpets. Becoming famous so suddenly I work in the custody centre, you can piss off now.”
at 19 was a shock. It was positive in a hedonistic way but Emmaluna on When I had the chance to take football seriously
I wish I could have felt more present. Performing again Jordan it was when I was 14 and I’d started smoking weed.
with our new music, I’ll definitely be in my body more. If you even look I was on trial for Brighton and the coach told me,
I went sober in 2018. I was heartbroken; I had cheated away or sneeze “You’ve got to be doing two-mile runs every morning.
and my relationship was over. I spoke to my mum about while watching This is your diet.” I just said no. I’m so thankful that
having suicidal thoughts. I’m her only child and was a film with him other stuff worked out otherwise I’d be kicking myself.
mainly raised by her, though my dad was around. he’ll rewind I’ve been with my girlfriend, Jade, for five years and
She always wanted me to have a connection with the and make you we are super in love. She’s solo now but she was in
Guyanese side of the family, especially my grandma. watch it again Little Mix. Now if I’m going through something my
I didn’t have identity issues when I was younger, spirals are filled with croissants not cocaine. My mum
because I was living on an estate in Neasden and it Jordan on obviously loves her too.
was a melting pot. At no point did I feel like an outcast Emmaluna One thing that Andrew Tate asks, trying to make out
or that it was weird that my mum didn’t look like me. Before she that women are inferior and unreliable, is if you needed
People were more openly racist in Brighton, where drinks from a someone to get you out of a high-danger situation, who
we moved when I was ten. I’d play football against bottle, she sticks are you throwing the car keys to? I’m, like, mate, my
Pease Pottage or Uckfield and kids would tell me to her tongue out. mum. One hundred per cent n
go back to my own country. Honestly, it didn’t really The first thing Interview by Yasmin Choudhury.
upset me. I was good at football, so it was always in that reaches Rizzle Kicks play Glastonbury on Friday. Avoidance,
reaction to me doing something good. the bottle isn’t Drugs, Heartbreak & Dogs by Jordan Stephens
There was a time a police officer was quite racist to her lips, it’s (Canongate £10.99) is out in paperback on July 3.
me. He said, “You lot are always saying ‘blud, blud’ and her tongue To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk

The Sunday Times Magazine • 7

8 • The Sunday Times Magazine
 MOST LIKELY TO...

MARRY A
BILLIONAIRE
Cheerleader, news reporter,
pilot, astronaut, the new
Mrs Bezos … The unstoppable
rise of Lauren Sánchez —
by her friends, colleagues
and estranged brother

REPORT BY MEGAN AGNEW

Sánchez in the 1987 yearbook

for Del Norte High School in
Albuquerque. Right: with her
fiancé, Jeff Bezos, in March

The Sunday Times Magazine • 9

he rock was inevitably enormous. Pink mogul’s wife!” The 11-page exposé quoted suits. Among them was Perry, who said they
diamond, cushion cut, 30-carat. Estimated messages apparently sent between Sánchez, were “putting the ‘ass’ in astronaut”.
cost: $2.5 million. Lauren Sánchez, 55, of a helicopter pilot, businesswoman and And last month she had a three-day hen
Beverly Hills, California, is engaged to former TV news anchor, and Bezos during do in Paris, which sparked speculation over
Jeff Bezos, 61, of Amazon.com, the third their months-long affair. “I love you, alive how the faces of the bride to be and some
richest man in the world, with a fortune of girl,” he wrote. “I will show you with my of her entourage seemed different from
about $228 billion depending on how you body and my lips and my eyes.” before. No doctors or aestheticians were
count it. “When he opened the box, I think Bezos announced his divorce from the formally credited.
I blacked out a bit,” she told Vogue of their author MacKenzie Scott, after 25 years of Now the couple are reportedly toning
May 2023 engagement. marriage and four children. Sánchez filed down the bling for the wedding, which is
The couple will be married in Venice, for divorce from the Hollywood mega-agent said to be costing less than £10 million,
Italy, most likely on the monastic island Patrick Whitesell, who is the father of two with a guest list of fewer than 200.
of San Giorgio Maggiore, some time of her three children. But who is Lauren Sánchez? And how
between Thursday and next Sunday — In the six years since, Bezos and Sánchez did she propel herself into the upper
the full length of their Venetian bender. For have been mocked for their ostentatious atmosphere of wealth and fame? I spent
richer, for better and in health. Guests are displays of wealth and she has been the past month talking to friends and
said to include various and interchangeable objectified — she was one of the most family, classmates and ex-boyfriends,
members of Klan Kardashian, the pop star talked-about guests at President Trump’s teachers and former bosses. What I found
Katy Perry and her husband, Orlando Bloom, inauguration in January, after the Facebook was a woman who told people she was
and Donald Trump Jr (his father, the US founder Mark Zuckerberg (the second “going to be somebody” with such
president, reportedly cannot make it). richest person in the world at $231.6 billion) conviction that they couldn’t help but think
The first public announcement of the was photographed staring at her cleavage. she was right. This is how she worked it.
couple’s union was similarly sensational, In April there was the trip into space,
if less traditional. “Bezos’ divorce!” read the when she and five other women were “She always wanted to be famous”
front page of the National Enquirer in launched from west Texas to the edge of Wendy Lorraine Sánchez was born on
January 2019. “Text sex and wild romps on Earth’s atmosphere on one of Bezos’s Blue December 19, 1969, in Albuquerque —
his private jet! How he stole another Origin rockets wearing skin-tight space at the same hospital, coincidentally,
where Bezos came into the world six years
earlier (his family later moved to Texas
The all-female Blue and then Florida).
Origin crew return The youngest of three, Sánchez has
safely to Earth in two brothers, Michael and Paul. Their
April after their mother, Eleanor, was clerk of the city
spaceflight; from council, and their father, Ray, was a pilot
left, Kerianne Flynn, and mechanic who went on to own a Cessna
Katy Perry, Sánchez, flight centre, operating small jets. One
Aisha Bowe, schoolfriend remembers her referring to
Gayle King and him as “my dad the pilot”.
Amanda Nguyen When she was seven her parents divorced,
after which she lived with her mother in
Albuquerque. Her father stayed in the city,
remarried and had a daughter, Elena, giving
Sánchez a half-sister when she was 13.
Sánchez talks often about being third-
generation Mexican-American and friends
remember her mother and maternal
grandmother, Elsie, speaking to one another

10 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 in Spanish at home. Sánchez, however,
was not taught the language — her mother
“worried” that she would get an accent, “SHE ALWAYS SAID, ‘I’M GOING TO BE
she said in an interview with Elle magazine.
“She thought that would hurt me.”
She has said she “came from nothing”,
SOMEBODY.’ BOY, WAS SHE RIGHT. SHE WAS A
telling The Hollywood Reporter: “I used
to sleep in the back of my grandmother’s
car when she would go clean houses.”
HARD WORKER, MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT”
Her brother Michael, 60, from whom
she is now estranged, recalls a less modest Above, from left: Sánchez performs Walgreens [the chemist].” Dinner at the
upbringing. “Our parents were successful with cheerleaders at high school, Sánchez home was similarly stylish. “It was
and wealthy,” he tells me over email, 1987; second from left in a beauty the first time I ever ate an artichoke.”
adding that their grandmother ran a local pageant in Albuquerque, c 1989; As a teen Sánchez competed in beauty
restaurant and was a “ legendary bookie” then known as Wendy, she proves pageants and let friends borrow her clothes.
as well as a “racehorse owner”. a catch in her school yearbook. I met two people who say they wore her
“Lauren always wanted to be famous. Below: Jeff Bezos makes headlines pageant dresses on prom night, the first a
Period,” he says. after the affair, January 2019 white strapless number with a sweetheart
neckline, the second red taffeta. Her hair
The cheerleader and beauty queen was big, blow-dried and then curled with
In Albuquerque the family lived in a house a weather girl. She would mimic, ‘Hi, this an iron, all held in place with Aqua Net
in Academy Acres, a middle-class suburb, is Wendy Rain!’ We got a real kick out of hairspray, and her outfits always matched.
and later Rio Grande Estates, one of the that.” She always followed the latest trends. She would arrive at school in heels, some
most affluent neighbourhoods in the city. “I remember going to the department store a little too big, clacking down the corridor
Eleanor, who had grown up in Los Angeles, and her mom bought her make-up from as her feet slipped out of the backs.
was known for her poise and style. Today Shiseido,” Montaño-Espinoza says. “I just Boys took notice. “Let’s just say, if she
she still owns a number of small properties thought, oh wow! I was buying make-up at wanted somebody, she was going to go
PREVIOUS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES. THESE PAGES: SWNS, THE MEGA AGENCY, NATIONAL ENQUIRER

in Albuquerque. Her tenants say she is a straight after them,” says Cherie Sadler
good landlord, and glamorous. She drops in Mann, 55, a friend who went skiing with
once a year wearing enormous sunglasses Sánchez a few times in Santa Fe as
and they send their cheques to an address teenagers. “She was so charming that she
in Beverly Hills, zip code 90210. left all of us thinking, well, shit, if you’ve got
Sánchez, who was known to everyone it, why not?”
as Wendy, attended a Catholic elementary One of the jocks Sánchez dated “on and
school and then Del Norte High in off ” was Ian Smelser, 55, a star of the Del
Albuquerque. As a teenager she drove a Norte High American football team and
two-door convertible red MG MGB, given now an investigator for the city authorities
to her by her parents, with the number plate in Albuquerque. “She could pretty much
“Wendy 1”. get who she wanted,” Smelser says. He and
She was a cheerleader at high school. Montaño-Espinoza are now a couple.
“She was one of the most energetic and “Boys found Wendy attractive and the
exuberant people at the school,” says her girls were either drawn to her or pushed
classmate Kevin Gant, 56. “She bounced.” away — mostly out of jealousy,” he says. She
Michelle Montaño-Espinoza, 55, who was was voted “biggest flirt” in their yearbook.
one of Sánchez’s closest friends and on the Tom Wade, 55, was one of the guys she
cheerleading squad with her, says she wanted dated in an “off ” period from Smelser. “I was
to be on TV. “She said she was going to be one of the better football players in New ➤

The Sunday Times Magazine • 11

 From left: Sánchez
reports on the
2011 Oscars in Los
Angeles; at the
controls of her
helicopter, 2021.
Below: with her
son Evan last year
after his first solo
helicopter flight
at the age of 18

tickets, it was hysterical. I was, like, have

SHE ONCE APPLIED TO BE A FLIGHT ATTENDANT men never seen women before?”
Was Sánchez a known name around

BUT THESE DAYS, SHE SAYS, “I DON’T WANT TO town? “Abso-frickin’-lutely,” she says. “She
was drop-dead gorgeous and determined
beyond belief. She was always getting out

BE A STEWARDESS. I WANT TO BE THE PILOT!” [of Albuquerque]. I never saw her staying.”
After Annmarie took her own life in her
early twenties in 1992, Sánchez stayed in
touch with the family for some years.
Mexico and she was one of the prettier “She’s still hot! She’s always been hot!” Several years earlier, at the age of 20,
girls in New Mexico, so it was one of those He still seems totally taken by Sánchez Sánchez had moved to Los Angeles, where
things that just happened,” he says over and remembers “a good person”. “Wendy her mother served as assistant deputy mayor.
the phone, taking a break from a clattering always said, ‘I’m going to be somebody,’” Sánchez applied to be a flight attendant
building site in Oklahoma, where he lives he says. “Boy, was she right. She was a hard with Southwest Airlines. “Back then they
and has a property company. worker, make no mistake about it.” weighed you, and I weighed 121 pounds,” she
They spent much of their time driving At the time Sánchez also charged around told The Wall Street Journal. “They said,
around in his car, a GMC pick-up, talking. town with Annmarie Ferrari, another young ‘You need to be 115.’” These days, she said,
“So many high school girls, especially if socialite. “They had Albuquerque by the she would respond differently. “I don’t want
they’re dating the football star, can’t handle balls,” says Toni Ferrari, 51, Annmarie’s to be a stewardess. I want to be the pilot!”
the conversation — they’re just happy to be younger sister. “Those two could walk into Instead, in 1990, she won a place on a
there,” Wade says. “But I remember having any room and command it. They never got two-year journalism course at El Camino
lots of in-depth conversations with Wendy parking tickets, they never got speeding College in south Los Angeles. “She sat in the
about my dreams and aspirations, and she very front row,” says Lori Medigovich, 67,
would truly listen.” They broke up at The her tutor. She would always approach guest
Beach, a waterpark where Sánchez had a job. speakers and ask for their business cards.
“She was a force of nature.” Medigovich
“You’re not dumb, you’re just dyslexic” soon noticed, however, that Sánchez was
In class, however, Sánchez was less secure “transposing letters and words in sentences”.
in her abilities. She has said she got “lost She suggested getting tested for dyslexia.
in the school system” due to undiagnosed Sánchez recently recalled being told by
dyslexia. I approached a number of the clinician: “You’re not dumb. You’re just
teachers who taught her, none of whom dyslexic.” “Before, she seemed overwhelmed,
remembers anything particular about her, withdrawn, like there was a dark cloud
just that she was there. hanging over her head,” Medigovich says.
She graduated from high school in the “After that she seemed like a completely
summer of 1987 and enrolled in an acting different person.”
and speech programme at the University
of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Around The TV dream comes true
that time she won prizes at the local Miss And so Sánchez ploughed on. She won a
Hawaiian Tropic pageant. scholarship on the communications course
LAUREN SÁNCHEZ / INSTAGRAM

At about the age of 19 Sánchez started at the University of Southern California,

dating Gavin Maloof, 13 years her senior where she studied between 1992 and 1994,
and from one of the richest families in but dropped out before graduating. She
Albuquerque. Maloof, 68, talks to me had acquired an agent, Ken Lindner, a
from Las Vegas, during a break from a slot notable name in the newscasting world,
tournament. How did the two meet? and got a job as a reporter at KTVK-TV
“Because she was hot,” he says, laughing. in Phoenix, Arizona. She was 25. ➤

The Sunday Times Magazine • 13

 Phil Alvidrez, 71, the director of news who
hired her, describes her as “fearless”. “She
took on whatever we threw at her” — from
house fires to sports events. One assignment
took her to the 1994 Phoenix Open, a
golf tournament where, according to her
former cameraman Mike Schmidt, 61, she
interviewed the basketball legend Michael
Jordan and the singer-songwriter Vince
Gill, who were paired in a charity round.
“We got plenty from the interview, so we
were just watching them tee off,” Schmidt
recalls. “Until we hear, ‘Wendy!’ It was Sánchez at a film
Vince, calling for her to walk with them. event in Los Angeles
And that was the money shot — Wendy in with her husband
the middle, Vince grabbing one of her hands at the time, the
and Michael Jordan grabbing the other, the Hollywood agent
three of them walking down the fairway.” Patrick Whitesell,
Later that day there was a knock on the left, with Bezos in
window of their truck, Schmidt says. It was close attendance
one of Jordan’s bodyguards, asking Sánchez
to join them at a sports bar that night. “She
was very charming, very attractive,” Schmidt
says. “She knew how to work it.”
In 1997, aged 28, Sánchez landed a job GUESTS AT HER WEDDING IN 2005
as a correspondent at Extra, a celebrity
and gossip TV show filmed in Los Angeles.
She started going by the name Lauren,
INCLUDED MATT DAMON AND BEN AFFLECK.
apparently because Wendy Sánchez was
too similar to the name of another anchor.
Just over a year later she moved to Fox
HUGH JACKMAN SANG MACK THE KNIFE
Sports News, where she and her show,
Going Deep, earned an Emmy nomination His mother was part of a new era of news “Matt and Ben don’t get to see each other
for an investigation into the dangers of TV: slick and entertaining — and Sánchez often,” Sánchez told People magazine at the
aluminium baseball bats. and her cohort of female newscasters were time, referring to Damon and Affleck. “So
One night in 1999, Steve Cohen, news raising eyebrows. In 2003 she became we sat them together.” The party planner
director at another LA station, KCOP-TV, guest anchor on Fox 11’s Good Day LA, described the kiss at the altar as “long”, after
received a tape from Sánchez’s agent. “And appearing on the cover of the lads’ mag which the couple danced a “sexy rumba”.
there she was,” he says. “Beautiful, gorgeous Open Your Eyes with the headline Shortly before the wedding she had
and there’s just this energy flowing from her.” “America’s hottest news anchor!”; she hosted the first season of So You Think You
Cohen invited her to lunch at the Beverly featured in the Hot Bodies issue of Us Can Dance, but was replaced by the
Hills hotel. “She walks across the room like Weekly; and performed at the Pussycat British presenter Cat Deeley for season two.
she owns it.” Two days later he got her into Dolls Burlesque Saloon in Las Vegas. She later said in an interview that she was
the studio for a screen test. While the tabloids drooled, the critics “fired because I was pregnant”. Fox
At 30 years old she landed her first job piled in — the LA Times calling her show Broadcasting denied the allegations.
as an anchor, on KCOP’s 10pm news “newscast for lobotomies”. “I’m diverted by At 37, in 2006, Sánchez had her second
alongside “legacy anchor” Rick Chambers. the teleprompter being reflected in her lips,” son, Evan, now 19, and two years after that
Ratings-wise it was “hit city”, Cohen says. By wrote the paper’s TV critic. KCOP’s Cohen a daughter, Ella, now 17. In 2009 Sánchez
31 she’d won an Emmy for her work there. calls the reaction a sexist backlash disguised went back to Extra as a weekend anchor,
Around 2000 she broke off her as intellectual snobbery. “The modern then in 2011 moved back to Good Day LA as
engagement to the NFL star Anthony Miller, American woman changed through the a co-host, where she remained for six years.
according to an interview in the Daily Mail. years,” he says. “The standard, serious and At 40 she received her fixed-wing pilot’s
She then had a relationship with another shall I say dowdy anchor changed as women licence and trained to become a certified
NFL player, Tony Gonzalez, with whom she did. Lauren was a modern woman and looked helicopter pilot. “My dad helped me find
had her first child, Nikko, in February 2001. like the gals she hung out with out of work.” an instructor in California and I remember
By the following year her relationship Two years after her engagement to the instructor saying, ‘Your dad’s a pilot,
with Gonzalez had ended and Sánchez Simmons, Sánchez announced her your mom’s a pilot. You must know a lot
was dating the actor Henry Simmons from betrothal to Patrick Whitesell, one of the about aircraft,’” Sánchez told People
NYPD Blue. She’d seen him at an event, most powerful men in Hollywood and magazine. “And I said, ‘The only thing I
“knew he was someone on TV”, she told a partner at the Endeavor Talent Agency. know is to stay away from the propeller.’
Television Week, and “walked right up to I am told they met at the Hollywood He goes, ‘OK, we have a lot of work to do
him”. Five months later they were engaged. hotspot Las Palmas. They bought an here.’” But she was soon hooked. “I get this
$11 million estate in Beverly Hills (just up 25-year-old, gorgeous instructor and I was,
A single mum in the era of “hot news” the hill from Bezos’s home with MacKenzie like, ‘I’m paying attention now.’”
Sánchez would get up early, often taking Scott) and were married in August 2005. Sánchez flew above the Hollywood
Nikko to the studio with her. “Growing A number of Whitesell’s clients were sign, above her son’s football practice at
GETTY IMAGES

up it did feel like it was me and her among the wedding guests, including the school, along the Malibu coastline. It was,
against the world,” he told Vogue in 2023. actors Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba and she said, one of the only places she felt
He is now 24 and a model. Hugh Jackman, who sang Mack the Knife. “almost entirely in control”. In 2016 ➤

The Sunday Times Magazine • 15

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 she founded Black Ops Aviation, an aerial name. “The untold story of sleazy Amazon say, ‘Well, Lauren, you definitely dress
film and production company, operating a founder,” the National Enquirer headline more for men,’” she told Vogue. “I actually
twin-engine Bell 429 and a single-engine read. The following month Bezos accused dress for myself.” “But it works for Jeff,”
Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil. Black Ops has the Enquirer of “extortion” and “blackmail”, Bezos said with a smile. He bought her
worked with the Academy Award-winner as it threatened to publish nude photos of a coffee mug from Amazon that reads
Christopher Nolan on Dunkirk, among him. Michael Sánchez, Sánchez’s estranged “Woke up sexy as hell again”.
other projects. Aaron Fitzgerald, a specialist brother, then attempted to sue Bezos for According to the American tabloid
pilot who worked with the company, calls defamation, claiming the Amazon founder Us Weekly, the two were introduced by
Sánchez “a person of action — and she falsely accused him of providing the nude Whitesell, encouraged to work with one
inspires that in others”. photos to the tabloid. The judge ruled in another on a documentary.
She is one of the few women doing the favour of Bezos. There is a figurehead on the bow of his
job. “Working is part of my DNA,” she told Legal wrangling aside, the couple posted superyacht, a voluptuous nude woman.
The Hollywood Reporter. “I enjoy it.” lots of photos of themselves looking loved When asked whether it was her, she told
up, out at dinner in co-ordinated floral Vogue: “I’m very flattered, but it’s not.”
The affair that changed everything prints, or appearing on red carpets with In fact it is Freyja, Norse goddess of love,
But it was her affair with Bezos that turned his newly bulging biceps on display. fertility, war and gold. “If it was me …” She
her from LA name into global household “I always found it interesting that people gestured an even larger pair of breasts.
For Bezos it has been a marked change.
“He used to look geeky, with the khaki
pants and dress shirts,” says Joseph
Rosenfeld, a personal style adviser with
clients in Silicon Valley and New York.
“Now he’s in sunglasses, leather jackets
and skin-tight, smooth tees, over an entirely
new, gym-honed body. This complete
emergence from relative style obscurity
has overlapped with his new relationship,
no question.”
Sánchez defines herself as a philanthropist
and is vice-chair of the Bezos Earth
Fund; she works closely with the Bezos
Academy, a network of tuition-free
preschools, and the Bezos Day One Fund.
“I always found her to have quite a magnetic
and strong presence,” says Fiona McRaith,
a senior adviser at the Earth Fund until
last year. “And really engaged and curious
about everything.”
And what of the wedding, taking place
in the historical epicentre of extravagance,
THE WEDDING IS GOING TO BE ON A PAR WITH opulence and gaucheness: Venice. “It’s
going to be on a par with a G7,” one Venetian
official told The Times. Will she be taking
A G7 SUMMIT. WILL SHE TAKE HER HUSBAND’S her husband’s surname, she was asked by
Vogue. “Uh, yes, 100 per cent,” she said.

SURNAME? “UH, YES, 100 PER CENT” “I am looking forward to being Mrs Bezos.”
Michael Sánchez says he has not seen
his sister since 2019 and not spoken to
her since 2020, the legal battle over the
From above: at the leaking of the affair story creating an
inauguration of irreparable fissure. He says their mother,
President Trump Eleanor, met with her to “discuss” the
in January with a situation and the two have not spoken
distracted Mark since. Neither he nor their mother are
Zuckerberg; invited to the wedding, he says.
Sánchez on her It is understood that her father, Ray,
hen party in Paris whom she still visits in Albuquerque, her
last month with brother Paul and half-sister, Elena, will
Kim Kardashian, attend. Elena was one of the 12 women
Eva Longoria and who went to the three-day hen in Paris.
And now she is joining a new family,
REUTERS, LAUREN SÁNCHEZ / INSTAGRAM

Kris Jenner
the Bezoses — one that happens to be one
of the world’s wealthiest. Out of the dozens
of people I’ve spoken to for this story,
nobody, apart from her brother perhaps,
has resented her success. They talked of her
magnetism and charm. “Force of nature”, as
she is known among her friends and family.
Mrs Bezos? We have lift-off n

The Sunday Times Magazine • 17

18 • The Sunday Times Magazine
COURT SHORT
What I learnt about the state of Britain’s
justice system from a week spent in
a magistrates’ court. By Emily Dugan
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES CAREY The Sunday Times Magazine • 19
 because it’s a long time ago and this entire “The court is unbelievably delayed,” says
process should’ve been dealt with in a Grieves’s solicitor, Simon Stevens. “It used
month, not 17 months later.” to be a three or four-month wait.” Now a year
Grieves weeps in the dock as his father between offence and trial is not uncommon.
speaks. His trial for actual bodily harm (ABH) The other witness in Grieves’s case is
is one of thousands across the country a dog walker who found the defendant
caught up in a bottleneck caused by chronic sobbing and shoeless in a field after the fight.
staff shortages and myriad other delays in He describes how Grieves told him his
the legal system. While national attention father had hit him first and that Grieves was
has been on the backlog in the Crown Court worried that his father would twist things
— where serious cases are tried by jury and when it came to court. The legal adviser
presided over by a judge — a crisis has been reminds the magistrates that it is for the
quietly unfolding in magistrates’ courts. prosecution to prove Grieves was not
All criminal cases begin in magistrates’ acting in self-defence.
courts and more than 90 per cent conclude In a slip of the tongue that suggests they
there. They process more than 1.3 million may have made up their minds, the chair
criminal cases in England and Wales a year. (lead magistrate) says they will “come back
This is where everyday crimes are decided in with our sentence … Sorry, our verdict,”
wo Christmases have come and gone since upon — shoplifting, speeding, antisocial and they leave the court to deliberate. Half
the afternoon Joe Grieves arrived at his behaviour, some assault cases — and where an hour later they find Grieves guilty and
father’s pretty Wiltshire cottage and every accused person must first appear. adjourn his sentencing for a month while
smashed a mug over his head, leaving him Serious offences such as robbery, rape and they wait for a probation report. With
bleeding by his kitchen table. It took five murder are referred on to the Crown Court. probation services also facing serious staff
metal staples to close the deep cut. But the magistrates’ courts — where shortages, this is the fastest it can be done.
It was December 23, 2023, and Grieves, the magistrates, a panel of three trained
39, had asked to stay for Christmas. A few volunteers from the community, serve as
days earlier he had destroyed furniture, judge and jury — are meant to be where Swindon is a Middle England town with a
threatened to kill his dad and left home. the lesser crimes are solved quickly. below-average crime rate, but the problems
He was mentally unwell with schizophrenia By the end of December 2024, 310,000 facing its magistrates’ court are evident on
and drug-induced psychosis and had just cases were waiting to be heard in magistrates’ arrival. An abandoned traffic cone sits by its
been housed by the council. A Christmas courts in England and Wales: the backlog rusty back door and pedestrian access from
invitation was not forthcoming. has risen by a quarter over the past two years. the town centre is via a graffiti-covered
It is now May 2025 and Grieves’s father Swindon magistrates’ court — where I sat alley. Built in 1965, the squat brick building
is finally on the witness stand at Swindon in on dozens of cases for a week last month had to be temporarily closed in 2022 while
magistrates’ court, struggling to remember — is no exception. Staff shortages have left a leaky roof was replaced.
the details of the fight. In a navy suit with two of its four criminal courtrooms mostly Lawyers say the heating often doesn’t
short white hair and steel glasses perched gathering dust and cases are backing up. work and that only one lavatory cubicle
on the end of his nose, he says he broke his Since April a shortage of legal advisers — was left working last year. In early May the
hand hitting his son “as hard as I could” to essential in making sure the lay magistrates court was freezing. “I’ve got used to it,” one
protect himself, but at a suggestion from make decisions within the law — forced legal adviser says. “It’s like being slowly
the defence lawyer that he started the fight, Swindon to cut from three trial days a week cryogenically frozen.”
his well-spoken voice starts to quiver. to just one, on a Tuesday. The rest of the Delays can be caused by anything from
“You’ve got that entirely wrong,” he says. week is taken up with initial hearings of late prison vans, inaudible video links,
When asked about differences in his those who have recently been arrested, plea absent interpreters and missing evidence,
accounts of that afternoon, he says: “It’s hearings and sentencing hearings. as well as an unmanageably long list of
cases. The court has two ushers who do
their best to rearrange the court lists and
ensure things don’t grind to a halt: Tash,
23, a psychology graduate who is wearing
Dr Martens under her black robe, and John,
64, a former sergeant major whose dour
expression belies a softer side. He can often
be found passing tissues into the dock or
persuading hapless defendants to take on
the duty solicitor they have rejected.
While the magistrates were deliberating
on the Grieves case, there was a rising sense
of panic in the courtroom about a trial not
yet started. Grieves’s trial was one of three
listed for 10am in court two, though it only
began properly after lunch. The day’s first
case, of a man accused of supplying Valium
pills to others in a homeless shelter, was
delayed by two witnesses failing to turn up
and long deliberations by the magistrates.
The final trial, of a man accused of battering
his ex-partner in front of their toddler, has
still not been heard. It is now after 3pm
and everyone in the case — including the

20 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 Daniel Dunham, 33, was dressed as a
leprechaun when he was pulled over while
driving back from a rave in Gloucestershire
in October last year. A saliva swab indicated
drugs and police sent off a blood sample
for testing. The next day the unlucky
leprechaun was pulled over again. With
drugs still in his system, another saliva
swab came back positive. It took months
for two sets of blood test results to come
back from a private laboratory, showing
Ecstasy, ketamine and cocaine in his system.
Wiltshire police say national delays of up
to three months for drug test results from
contractors are typical, but Dunham’s case
took “a little longer due to an admin error”.
Meanwhile Dunham has been free to
drive around. There was another long delay
for him to be charged by post — and then
the court had to find a date. It is only now
that he has entered a guilty plea that an
interim ban can be introduced ahead of
sentencing next month.
Sloppy police files also cause problems.
The police officer, who cancelled leave to In one case a driver accused of possessing
IN COURT A FATHER give evidence in the case, has spent the day
on a metal bench scrolling his phone. He
cannabis and failing to provide a breath
sample for analysis has to be adjourned

TRIES TO RECALL was expecting to be here for no reason: “It’s

the mentality I have every time I come to
court, because they’re so busy.” Just before
for four weeks because it contains no
statement from police referring to the
alleged crime and no police bodycam video.

A FIGHT WITH 4pm, his pessimism is proved right. The

judge rules he can’t appear as a witness and
the usher dashes out to tell him he can go.
On another day lawyers and the court
legal adviser try to make sense of a case
file provided by police for a series of thefts.
HIS SON. “THIS The case concludes in less than two
hours and the judge finds the man guilty.
Many entries have the wrong dates and
some have no evidence or witness

SHOULD’VE BEEN But without the administrative gymnastics

of court staff it would not have gone ahead.
His defence solicitor, Clare Gooding, 45,
statements. “Have you actually got any
evidence for April 10?” the defence lawyer
asks the prosecutor. “No,” she replies,

DEALT WITH IN A has been doing the job for almost 20 years.
“The criminal justice system is
looking perplexed. Her opponent retorts:
“I’ve got no CCTV, I’ve got no statements.

MONTH, NOT 17 unrecognisable from when I qualified,” she

says. “In very basic terms, the system is
underfunded and completely broken.”
I’ve got f*** all.” In the end it is agreed that
some of the charges — including one for
pinching toothpaste — will be dropped.

MONTHS LATER” The government has announced up to

£450 million additional investment a year
for the courts system by 2028-29, and has
Wiltshire police say they are “aware of
issues regarding the quality” of some of their
files presented in court and have introduced
tasked Sir Brian Leveson, a retired judge, a new oversight process to improve it”.
victim, her family and a police witness — with finding radical solutions to the
has been waiting since 9.30am. Crown Court backlog in an independent
The incident happened more than review. He is expected to propose that The pressure on Swindon has grown as
a year ago and the trial has already been magistrates are part of the answer by other Wiltshire courts have shut down.
postponed once. Now, with less than 90 creating an intermediate court ruled by Chippenham magistrates’ court, a grand
minutes left of the magistrates’ day, there two magistrates alongside a judge. stone building that was purpose-built in
is no way they will have time to hear it. The Gooding and others I speak to are baffled 1997, was the last to go in 2017 — it is now
only option appears to be postponing it by how that will work. “The magistrates’ a Lidl — but it followed Trowbridge and
again. The legal adviser looks in the diary. court is already crippled by huge deficiencies Devizes, leaving Swindon and Salisbury to
“The next trial date is March next year,” with funding and staff, and the buildings serve a sprawling rural county. On top of
she tells the lawyers. The prosecutor is themselves are falling apart,” she says. “All that, Salisbury magistrates’ court is closed
horrified. “I’m not telling her that,” she says. of that’s already happening, so how can they on Fridays, so its cases for that day are heard
They try to find a solution. Some cases use them to deal with the delay in the Crown in Swindon, 40 miles away, instead.
in magistrates’ courts are heard by a district Court? The wheels will really fall off.” Between 2010 and 2019 more than half of
judge — a lawyer with five years’ experience The proportion of magistrates’ trials that all magistrates’ courts across England and
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES CAREY

whose appointment is decided by a do not go ahead on the day they are listed Wales were jettisoned in an efficiency drive
commission — and both lawyers agree has risen from 15 per cent to 22 per cent in to fund the Ministry of Justice’s digital
they would prefer a judge to hear the whole the past decade across England and Wales. reforms. In total 164 out of 320 closed their
thing that afternoon, if it can be arranged. The reasons include court administration doors, raising about £223 million.
Tash and John run between the two court failures, a lack of evidence and defendants The changes were partly in response to
rooms and the magistrates agree to swap not showing up. Delays outside the the fall in crime — contrary to popular
with a judge who is working next door. courtroom don’t help. belief, violence, burglary and car offences ➤

The Sunday Times Magazine • 21

 have decreased by almost 90 per cent over
the past 30 years, according to the Crime
Survey for England & Wales. But the result
is rural defendants, victims and witnesses
travelling ever greater distances. Research
found the closures led to an increase in the
number failing to attend hearings.
Lisa Bish, 47, lives in a village on the
outskirts of Chippenham, a 40-minute
drive from Swindon. She is on benefits
having been diagnosed with fibromyalgia
and says she had to sell her phone to afford
the £20 petrol she needed to travel here
for her sentencing. “I went to Computer
Exchange yesterday and tried to sell my
Xbox, but they wouldn’t take it, so I offered
my iPhone instead,” she says.
Bish is in court to be sentenced after
admitting hitting her ex-girlfriend and
pulling up a handbrake during an argument
on a car journey where she was a passenger.
The incident happened more than a year
ago and she pleaded guilty to the assault,
but disputed the dangerous driving charge.
Her trial was supposed to be in November harder, but the money isn’t provided for a
but was moved because of court closures.
She says the wait “was soul-destroying” and ONE DEFENDANT sufficient number of people to do the job.”
The duty solicitors, who give initial free
two weeks ago she pleaded guilty to the
driving charge too. “I’ve accepted it and
held my hands up. I want to take whatever’s
TOOK THE DAY OFF legal advice to those facing serious charges,
are also spread thinly. Just one typically
covers the two courtrooms now, instead
coming and move on.”
The court has not made that easy. “Last
time I was here my solicitor thought he’d
FROM HIS JOB IN AN of two. They are an ageing breed. Thanks
in part to stagnating legal aid rates and
increasing demands, more than a quarter
get me on the list, but five hours later the
usher didn’t even have my name,” she says. ALDI WAREHOUSE of them have left the profession since 2017.
“Most salaried lawyers doing this work
“I didn’t bring a drink or food. Nobody told
me to bring a picnic.”
Communication seems to be a constant
TO COME TO COURT, earn under £40,000 a year and it just
doesn’t keep up with the cost of living,”
says the defence solicitor Richard Williams,
issue. On Wednesday the solicitor Caroline
Dunne tells me she has just discovered that UNAWARE HIS CASE 54. “I can’t think of anyone under 35 who
I know doing this in the county. When
a trial she was expecting tomorrow has been
put back to a Tuesday in July. “Nobody told
us. It’s a domestic violence case and the
HAD BEEN MOVED I started 26 years ago you could make a
reasonable living. There’s no new blood
coming through at all.”
victim doesn’t know either.”
The following day Shajid Olid-Ahmed, 21,
arrives in a suit expecting a trial for a minor
BY THREE MONTHS Magistrates, too, are in short supply. In
2006 there were about 30,000 and 320
courts. Today it’s 14,500 in 156 courts,
driving offence. He has taken the day off according to the Magistrates’ Association.
from his job in an Aldi warehouse — unaware magistrates in Swindon, six days a week, but Almost anyone between the ages of 18 and
that his case had been moved back by only one is both full-time and fully qualified. 74 can be a magistrate, but in reality the need
almost three months. The alleged crime Alongside the legal adviser for today’s trial to be available at least 13 full days a year
was back in October 2023 when police said is a twentysomething trainee who has built means it is more attractive to those who are
his Smart car windows were too tinted. He a reputation for cogent advice. His presence well-off, retired or underemployed, with 82
told them he bought it that way and was is promising — but he is hopeful of a per cent over the age of 50. A recruitment
unaware it was illegal. “I don’t even know barrister pupillage. “He’s not going to be drive to attract younger candidates from
what it means, ‘adjourned’,” he says when here for long,” one defence solicitor says. more diverse backgrounds is bearing fruit
his lawyer explains he has wasted a day. Legal advisers used to be paid similarly to but progress is slow. As many lawyers see
Late prison vans are common here, the other lawyers in the building but their it, magistrates are still drawn from an elite
according to lawyers and court staff. Across salaries have not kept pace with other group that is homogeneous in terms of age,
the country last year 839 magistrates’ court publicly funded legal work, prompting an race and social class. “The idea is you’re
trials had to be cancelled on the day because exodus. Even the most experienced rarely meant to be judged by your peers, but they
prisoners were not brought to court on earn more than £45,000, while equivalent never are; it’s twinset and pearls,” one says.
time, more than double the rate of a decade desk jobs in the Crown Prosecution Service Some parts of the country find it harder to
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES CAREY

ago. The lack of an interpreter also stopped can pay as much as £15,000 more. recruit a diverse bench than others. Having
more than 700 trials happening on the day, Juan, 55, was a legal adviser in Swindon a case heard in Salisbury is something
up 46 per cent in five years. for 34 years. Last year he moved to the CPS defence lawyers around here try to avoid.
on a significant pay rise to do similarly “It’ll be a lady or a lord — you do not want
skilled work. “When I left, the top of the a trial before Salisbury’s bench,” one says.
At the sharp end of all of this are the legal legal adviser salary scale was lower than Lawyers for both the prosecution and
advisers. There are four serving the it was in 2006,” he says. “No one works defence in Swindon tell me they prefer a ➤

The Sunday Times Magazine • 23

 SOME SINS CAN NEVER
BE FORGIVEN...

‘EXPLOSIVE’ ‘ASTONISHING’
Cara Andrea
Hunter Mara

‘POWERFUL
‘ABSOLUTELY
AND BRILLIANT’
GRIPPING’
Janice
Shari
Hallett
Lapena

SOME CRIMES CAN NEVER

BE FORGOTTEN
 someone else. If he is convicted it will be
his 202nd offence for theft — he is one of
Swindon’s most prolific shoplifters.
Yet by claiming mistaken identity
instead of entering a plea, he has presented
the magistrates with a conundrum and, by
insisting on representing himself, he has
no lawyer to untangle it. The legal adviser
suggests entering a not guilty plea, which
will mean a trial.
When asked if he is seeking bail, Morgan
responds: “I’ll just go to prison. I don’t want
to be in your community.” He is told that he
is being held in prison until another hearing
because of fears he will commit further
offences. “Yeah, whatever,” he responds
and is led downstairs in handcuffs.
Three weeks later Morgan is released
with a new community order banning him
from the Co-op, having accepted a lawyer
and changed his plea to guilty. Morgan, who
appears to have untreated addiction and
mental health problems, used up a prison
space in a system already so full that serious
judge over magistrates for timeliness and find her hardship will not be exceptional offenders are released early.
a fairer application of the law. and ban her for six months with a £220 fine. The recent sentencing review, which
As, I imagine, does Fitzroy Simpson. He proposed ending most prison sentences
was never the biggest name in football — of less than 12 months, would not prevent
he broke through in the late Eighties as a Sometimes the courtroom descends cases like his ending in custody. As a serial
midfielder for Swindon Town before being into farce. Martin Morgan, 40, was arrested offender who has repeatedly breached a
snapped up by Manchester City. Now 55, a day ago for stealing armfuls of whisky community order, he would likely be one
and in the midst of a divorce, he has been from a Co-op and breaching a ban on of the exceptions.
caught drink driving — pulled over by entering Swindon town centre. In a broad Magistrates used to be limited to handing
police in April in his Honda SUV, three West Country accent, he gives his name, out six-month prison sentences for single
times over the drink-drive limit. answers “no fixed abode” as his address and offences, but this was increased to 12
“It’s not often we get World Cup players launches into an unconventional defence. months by the Conservative government
in this court,” says the district judge Joanna “I don’t believe this is my real name,” in 2022 to help clear the Crown Court
Dickens after his defence lawyer points out he says. “I think I got snatched as a child. backlog. The move was scrapped after a year
his caps for Jamaica. The lawyer paints an I think it’s a fake birth certificate. Just call when it emerged it had actually worsened
emotive picture of Simpson’s reliance on me John Dunn,” he tells the magistrates. the pressure on prisons — according to
a car for his work as a talent scout, detailing The court’s legal adviser is deadpan in her critics of the scheme, magistrates tend to
his commitment to under-12s grassroots response. “I believe I’ve seen you here jail people for longer and more quickly than
football. The judge acknowledges his before a few times, Mr Morgan,” she says. judges and juries. This did not stop the
“professional commitments”, guilty plea With dark, scraggly hair, an intense stare justice secretary reintroducing the powers
and previous good character and issues him and a distinctive long scar down his right last year in an effort to deal with the large
with a £5,000 fine and a 20-month driving cheek, Morgan is not easily confused with number of prisoners waiting on remand for
ban, outside the guideline of 23 months a Crown Court date.
minimum for offences of this seriousness. The Ministry of Justice says: “We’re
The following day three magistrates hear investing an extra £450 million a year into
the case of a single mother who has been
caught slightly over the alcohol limit while “THE IDEA IS the courts to tackle court backlogs and
boost efficiency. But money alone won’t fix
supervising a learner driver — an offence,
just like drink-driving. She had 46
micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath
YOU’RE MEANT the record backlog we inherited. That’s why
we’ve asked Sir Brian Leveson to propose
once-in-a-generation reform to deliver
and the limit is 35 (Simpson’s was 110).
She had been caught before, in January,
in almost identical circumstances, and her
TO BE JUDGED BY swifter justice for victims.”
With a shortage of magistrates, judges,
court staff and lawyers, it is still unclear
insurance had run out. She tells the court
she has five children who she needs to YOUR PEERS, BUT how Leveson’s likely proposal — for an
intermediate court hearing less serious
drive to school, dance class and to see their
dad, who lives in another town and does not
have a car. Her cleaning job also requires
THEY NEVER ARE; Crown Court cases — will function.
Everyone in this building knows that each
day’s success depends on having the court

IT’S TWINSET AND

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES CAREY

her to be able to drive. “The net result of staff as a backstop.

losing her licence would be catastrophic,” “If it wasn’t for the ushers there would be
her lawyer says.
The legal adviser tells the magistrates it
is a minimum six-month ban unless they
PEARLS,” SAYS ONE absolute chaos,” says the defence solicitor
Gordon Hotson. “The system is broken. It
is only because everybody puts in way more
believe she will suffer an “exceptional
hardship”. After a short deliberation they DEFENCE LAWYER than they are obliged to that it works at all.
We are one glitch away from total failure.” n

The Sunday Times Magazine • 25

One foot in Above: a footballer who wanted
to emigrate to the US makes his
final journey in a sports shoe.
Greater Accra, 2022

the grave
Top right: a fishmonger
known for her sardines is
given a fitting send-off.
Central Region, 2018

Right: a village elder who always

dreamt of flying is booked
Oak, mahogany … or giant Nike trainer? on board Ghana International
Airlines. Oti Region, 2020
In Ghana, when it comes to coffins,
they think outside the box

PHOTOGRAPHS BY
REGULA TSCHUMI
26 • The Sunday Times Magazine
The Sunday Times Magazine • 27
G
hanaian funerals are rarely sombre events.
They are joyous celebrations of life, viewed
as a rite of passage and a chance to bring
pride to the family name. The fantasy
coffin, popularised by the Ga ethnic group
from Greater Accra, is a key part of the
proceedings. Designed to reflect elements
of the deceased’s personality, the wooden
caskets are elaborately painted and
decorated, as seen in these photographs
by Regula Tschumi, a Swiss anthropologist
who has documented Ghana’s funeral
culture for more than 20 years n

Buried in Style: Artistic Coffins

and Funerary Culture in Ghana by
Regula Tschumi (Kehrer Verlag £45).
Buy from timesbookshop.co.uk

Below: mourners sing Above: a shop owner Right: the coffin for a Below right: professional
for the village tailor, is buried in a bottle traditional priest resembles coffin dancers
laid to rest in a of Paradise brand the teapot he used for perform at the funeral
sewing machine casket. talcum powder. his ritual ablutions. for a fishmonger.
Central Region, 2016 Greater Accra, 2019 Central Region, 2009 Greater Accra, 2024

28 • The Sunday Times Magazine

ALL IMAGES © REGULA TSCHUMI

The Sunday Times Magazine • 29

 E N O REGRETS
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SO P HY HOLLAND
PORT R A I T BY

30 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 Johnny Depp in Madrid last
month, photographed for
The Sunday Times Magazine

The Sunday Times Magazine • 31

“MY COMEBACK?” a photo of his late friend Hunter S
Thompson and a doll of Donald Trump
climbing into a cage with the American flag
inside it — the “horrible cage”, he explains
of the US presidency. On the coffee table I
spot a magnifying glass, a book on Jack the
Ripper and an ashtray with “Hello C***y”
written on it.
This rented house is where Depp had
been living for months but he knows that he
has to move. Somebody of his infamy simply
cannot live near Carnaby Street without
getting stuck indoors. “I can be isolated and
happier than a clam,” he explains. “But I
don’t get out much. I’m stuck with my
thoughts; just thinking, writing or watching
weird shit on YouTube. It can’t be healthy.”
Has he tried using a disguise? “I’ve tried
hats,” he says. “Or I can grow a beard. But
there is never any way to hide, and I just feel
uncomfortable causing this weird form of
attention I do, because I’m really shy.”
How is that compatible with his career?
“Well, fame is the last thing I ever chased,”
Depp says with a sigh. “If you look at the
9,000 years that I’ve been doing this shit,
Johnny Depp drawls mischievously, making band with Alice Cooper. Recently he it’s pretty clear that I wasn’t ever thinking
it clear that he does not consider his return was even playing guitar with liberal heroes how I could be more famous, make a hit or
to the Hollywood limelight anything of the Patti Smith, Michael Stipe and Bruce please the press. Fame is an occupational
sort. “Honestly? I didn’t go anywhere.” He Springsteen at a concert in New York. hazard — but if I spout off about how upset
shrugs. “If I actually had the chance to split His first Hollywood foray since Fantastic I am, people will say, ‘Sweetheart, take a job
I would never come back.” Beasts is starring opposite Penélope Cruz pulling trash bags.’ ”
It is late in the evening and we are in Day Drinker, filmed this spring and due I spot a painting behind him — Depp
cocooned in the lounge of a gorgeous old next year. And we have Modi: Three Days is an artist as much as an actor these days,
house in the bustling heart of Soho, London. on the Wing of Madness, a film Depp has with a collection of 780 prints flogged for
Over a couple of months I trailed Depp directed about the Italian painter and £3 million through a London gallery in
around the globe — from San Sebastian in sculptor Amedeo Modigliani that is out 2022. “This is a portrait of my daughter,
Spain to New York before ending up here next month and what we meet to talk about. Lily-Rose,” he says softly. Lily-Rose, born
— for an epic, fun, bizarre, intense Essentially Depp is back — and I spend in 1999, and Jack, 2002, are the children
rollercoaster of a session, starring a broad time with him in these last moments Depp had with the French actress and
range of drinks, starting with Aperol, and before he heads out into the world again. singer Vanessa Paradis, his girlfriend of 14
some roll-ups. Depp is in ripped jeans, vest We settle on sofas, from where the years. The couple split up in 2012. In the
and a checked shirt, with tinted glasses that actor barely moves. He instead remains painting she stares intently, blonde hair
he takes off now and then to run his hand a remarkably still if slumped presence, ruffled. “I never finished it,” Depp says. “She
through his long, scraggly hair. his delivery an eventually coherent ramble was ten then, and 25 now.” Lily-Rose is an
He is 62 now, four decades into a career of many thoughts punctuated by frequent
that stalled somewhat in the fallout of bouts of raucous laughter. He is a man who
his divorce from Amber Heard in 2016. In cannot help but be excellent company,
2020 he parted ways with the Harry Potter largely because he appears to treat his
franchise Fantastic Beasts and accused entire life with enormous incredulity. Above: fans greet Depp at the
Hollywood of a “boycott” of him, but then, The room is filled with trinkets. One wall Royal Courts of Justice in London
as he says, he did not really go anywhere is filled with guitars; another a TV. There’s for the final day of his libel case
— he was on screens in adverts for Dior, in a model of Depp as Edward Scissorhands against The Sun in 2020
the movies Minamata and Jeanne du Barry, and paraphernalia from Pirates of the
and on stage with Hollywood Vampires, his Caribbean. It is cluttered but clean. He has

32 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 actress — she got excellent reviews in
December for her role in Nosferatu.
“Years get away from us, don’t they?”
Depp says. “How old are your kids?” Ten
and eight. “Oh, I envy you. I’m of the
empty-nest syndrome …” Does he miss
having the children about? “Oh man, my
kids growing up in the south of France in
their youth?” Depp says of the estate he
shared with Paradis. “I was Papa. I cannot
tell you how much I loved being Papa.” Later
the family moved to Los Angeles. “Then,
suddenly, Papa was out the window. I was
Dad. But Papa was awesome and I’m getting
old enough for Papa to possibly come back.
Some motherf***er’s going to have to call
me Papa!” He pauses, quite clearly a man
who would like to be a grandfather.
I ask him where home is. “Well, I don’t
spend much time in the US. So there is
the joint in the Bahamas or here. But out, “Beautiful people!” as Depp takes his Depp had been “verbally and physically
home …” He takes a lengthy beat. “Truly, seat for his film. abusive”. By that August a settlement had
the first time I felt I had a home was the The immersive and surreal Modi plays out been reached in which Depp agreed to pay
place in the south of France where Vanessa like a fever dream, as Modigliani (Riccardo Heard $7 million, which the actress said
and I raised the kiddies. That’s the only Scamarcio) scuttles drunk around Paris would go to charities.
place that ever felt like home.” while a gaggle of friends and art dealers, In a joint statement the ex-couple said
PREVIOUS PAGES: SOPHY HOLLAND FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE. HAIR: MASSIMO GATTABRUSI. MAKE-UP: ROCKY FAULKNER. STYLING: PENNY ROSE.

In September last year I saw Depp at the including Stephen Graham and Al Pacino, their relationship was “bound by love …
San Sebastian International Film Festival either help or hinder his artistic greatness. there was never any intent of physical or
for the premiere of Modi. Depp likes the Depp as a director has an eye for detail and emotional harm”.
Basque town: in 2021 the festival gave him eccentricity, while the script is rather blunt. Then, in 2018, The Sun newspaper ran
a prestigious Donostia award for lifetime Two standout lines are “Don’t kill the artist!” an article labelling Depp a “wife beater”
achievement at the height of his “boycott” and “Nothing left to judge!”, while there is that led him to sue its executive editor, Dan
and stuck with him throughout what he a volatile central love affair with a couple Wooton, and its publisher, News Group
tells me later were “all the hit pieces, the throwing objects at each other. I have never Newspapers, for libel at the High Court in
bullshit”. He wants to repay them: on his come out of a biopic and learnt so little about London. He lost in November 2020, with
THESE PAGES: EYEVINE, OSAKIDETZA / DEPARTAMENTO DE SALUD DEL GOBIERNO VASCO/THE MEGA AGENCY, AP

last day in the town Depp dresses up as its subject but so much about its director. Mr Justice Nicol stating, “The great majority
Captain Jack Sparrow to visit children at of alleged assaults of Ms Heard by Mr Depp
the local Donostia University Hospital. epp met the American actress have been proved” — a decision that led to

D
At the premiere crowds of intrigued Amber Heard in 2009, on the set of the so-called boycott of Depp as evidence
locals and devoted Depp fans head to San The Rum Diary, a film based on the detailed allegations of drug use, blackouts,
Sebastian’s main cinema, the Kursaal — Hunter S Thompson novel. Depp abuse and a time when Depp claims Heard,
it is a cool, clear night and screams come was 45, Heard was 22. At the time or her friend, defecated in his bed.
from all around, even across the river. Depp Depp was still in a relationship Soon came further acrimony, as the media
remains a huge draw and people gasp as with Paradis. Depp and Heard circus moved to the US. Specifically to a
they glimpse him, in his brown jacket, married in February 2015, but by May 2016 court in Fairfax County, Virginia, when, in
floral scarf and broad-brimmed hat. He Heard had filed for divorce and a restraining March 2019, Depp sued Heard for libel over
waves, signs autographs. A woman yells order, plus $50,000 a month, claiming a column she wrote in The Washington
Post in December 2018 headlined “I spoke
up against sexual violence — and faced our
culture’s wrath”. The trial eventually started
in April 2022, with Depp attempting to
prove that Heard was actually the one who
had violently abused him.
The case was live streamed, peaking at
3.5 million viewers. On social media the
fallout was bleak — mostly for Heard at
the hands of Depp’s passionate fans and,
some allege, bots. In June 2022 the jury
found in favour of Depp, saying he was ➤

Top: dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow to

visit children in a San Sebastian hospital
in September. Left: in court in Virginia
with his ex-wife, Amber Heard, 2022

The Sunday Times Magazine • 33

a victim of defamation and awarding him then. Depp is the youngest of four — sisters
about $15 million (£12 million) in damages.
As the evening draws in, up in Depp’s “THE NIGHT Debbie and Christi and his beloved brother,
Daniel — and it was not a happy home.
living room conversation turns to the trial.
He takes a break to visit the lavatory as more
drinks are poured and I accept a glass of his
BEFORE THE TRIAL “My brother had his problems with the
parents,” Depp explains. “There were many
episodes of conflict — he and my father
own-brand rum — a nice drop, deep flavour.
What a tawdry affair that trial was — and
not just the faeces. It was photos of Depp
IN VIRGINIA would duke it out — and Debbie had her
problems with them too. Then Danny got
married. Soon Debbie got married too, so it
allegedly passed out; his “mega pint” of
wine; a severed finger; Heard’s claim that I DIDN’T FEEL was only me and Christi. Then Christi got
married, so it was only me. And dynamics
he conducted a “cavity search” on her while
looking for his drugs; Depp’s A-lister exes
Kate Moss, Winona Ryder and Paradis
NERVOUS. IF changed. It was almost as if I was used to
conflict. It was not abnormal. I did my best
to just step in and out.”
backing him in court statements.
So much, literally, dirty laundry aired in YOU’RE SPEAKING The room falls silent for the first time.
“So,” he continues, veering back to his trial
public and I never really understood why
Depp brought these cases to court. Surely,
I say, he must regret the details that the
THE TRUTH? and Heard, “what were my initial dealings
with what we call ‘love’? Clearly obtuse.
And what that means is, if you’re a sucker
public became privy to?
“Look, it had gone far enough,” he says
firmly. “I knew I’d have to semi-eviscerate
ROLL THE DICE” like I am, sometimes you look in a person’s
eye and see some sadness, some lonely
thing and you feel you can help that person.
myself. Everyone was saying, ‘It’ll go away!’ “But no good deed goes unpunished,” he
But I can’t trust that. What will go away? The had been in love with — surely it cannot says. “Because there are those who, when
fiction pawned around the f***ing globe? have been easy to witness what she was you try to love and help them, will start to
No it won’t. If I don’t try to represent the going through? give you an understanding of what that
truth it will be like I’ve actually committed “Well, that is the thing,” he says slowly, malaise, that perturbance was in their eyes.
the acts I am accused of. And my kids will obliquely. “ ‘That I had been in love with …’ It manifests itself in other ways. And the
have to live with it. Their kids. Kids that I’ve That’s where we could start, to look at the
met in hospitals. So the night before the roots of ‘in love with’.” He makes an
trial in Virginia I didn’t feel nervous. If you unexpected jump back to his childhood.
don’t have to memorise lines, if you’re just “Because with regards to how I was raised,
speaking the truth? Roll the dice.” I wouldn’t say it was a house without love,
His voice has risen, shaking. He fiddles but it was an intense love and I would not say
with a cigarette paper. “Look, none of that myself, or my siblings, or my pop and
this was going be easy, but I didn’t care. mom, experienced any great love or bliss.”
I thought, ‘I’ll fight until the bitter f***ing
end.’ And if I end up pumping gas? That’s epp was born on June 9, 1963, in

D
all right. I’ve done that before.” Owensboro, Kentucky, a sizeable
I get that — and to many the second trial sprawl of middle-class city on
did what Depp wanted. Without its verdict the banks of the Ohio River. The
it is unlikely he would be having this revival. family moved a lot before settling
However, when he talks about this period in Florida. Depp’s mother, Betty
of his life and how he was wronged, I can’t Sue, was a waitress, while his father,
help but think of Heard. After the trial in John, was an engineer. They divorced when
Virginia, while one juror said that “there Depp was 15, but scars were formed before
wasn’t enough or any evidence that really
supported what she was saying”, he also said
that “they were both abusive to each other”.
And what was abundantly clear during both
trials was that Heard, a woman with far less
money and significantly fewer fans than
Depp, suffered more in both court and the
court of public opinion than he did.
I saw that at his London trial. The mainly
female crowd outside the court stayed there
for weeks to wave at Depp and scream
death threats at Heard. She used to be his
wife. She was, I tell him, somebody that he

Clockwise from right: with

Vanessa Paradis in 2010; Kate
Moss in 1989; his daughter,
Lily-Rose, and Heard in 2016

34 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 interesting thing is that it is merely a sliver
of my life I have chosen to explore, because
it is my mother and my father. Do you know
what I’m saying?”
Well, not entirely, but it seems Depp is
talking about how he felt drawn to Heard
because he saw in their relationship
something similar to what his father shared
with his mother. I let him continue.
“So Betty Sue was an awesome woman
who revealed herself to be kind in the end,
though she didn’t know how to treat
anyone when I was growing up.” Depp’s
mother died in 2016, aged 81.
“She liked to escape from reality from
time to time and learnt how to live in a
miserable state. I was in dreadful fear of
this woman as a child but, at the same time,
I loved her. So I’m not surprised I allowed
myself to experience something — in some
little psychological sphere — to help
understand what it was like between my
parents. I had to understand how my father
dealt with it. dolefully tells his story while cartoons are back to my high school and said I wanted to
“So it would be dumb for me to carry any projected on to the walls around us. The come back. You see, my choices were the
bitterness,” he continues. “Eternal hatred? voiceover intones how, as a child, Depp Marine Corps or going back to school.”
You want to put curses on someone? No. only went home to change his clothes And you were worried about a lack of
I know who I am, what that was and, look, because, if he stayed any longer, he would girls in the Marines? “Sure. Also I was
it was a learning experience.” be hit by either a stiletto or an ashtray. “I felt irreverent in the face of authority. Once in
Yet the version of Depp who was adored like I was inside the actor’s brain,” is how biology I wasn’t listening and the teacher
in the public eye in 2009 is very different, to one reviewer succinctly describes the show. said, ‘Mr Depp, answer the question.’ I said,
some, to the Depp of today. Still no regrets? I spot a painting called Death by Confetti, ‘What question?’ And he said, ‘What’s the
“No,” he says sternly, the victor enjoying a pensive-looking skeleton in front of difference between sexual and asexual?’
his spoils. “I have no regrets about anything brightly coloured dots. As I take it in I think And I said, ‘Well, one’s from behind.’
— because, truly, what can we do about last of Depp’s voiceover in the adjacent room. That was not long before I dropped out.
week’s dinner? Not a f***ing thing.” It talks about Hollywood and how the The principal said, ‘John, I know you play
industry builds you up, before letting you music. I know your dream. I strongly

O
n a stifling day in Manhattan last choke on the celebration, the confetti. “In suggest you just follow that.’ ”
September, Depp is putting the the end you die,” goes the recording of In 1983 Depp drove to LA with his band
finishing touches to an exhibition Depp. “You actually die.” the Kids, later renamed Six Gun Method.
of his art called A Bunch of Stuff. As a child Depp found escape, not He wanted to be a rock star but the band
Later there will be an opening through acting, but music. His brother broke up. A few months later, in 1984,
night party, attended by two titans was the biggest influence, teaching him to he found himself up for a small role in
who represent the two sides of listen to less Frampton Comes Alive, more Wes Craven’s seminal horror film
Depp’s resurgent career — the indie film Van Morrison. “Music was all I did from A Nightmare on Elm Street. “I didn’t know
director Jim Jarmusch, who cast him in age 12,” he says. “I found my purpose.” what I was doing,” Depp says. “And it
Dead Man in 1995, and the super-producer Even at that young age Depp was was strange I got the role,
LANDMARK MEDIA, SHUTTERSTOCK, ALMY, GETTY IMAGES

Jerry Bruckheimer, who ran the billion- gigging in the punk rock clubs of because it was written for
dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. South Beach Miami where an athletic type, but this
Depp is on a wander, passing comments “people usually just go to was early 1984, so I was
to his team, who are busy creating various score”. Was he still at white as a sheet, skinny,
forms of content. He has paint splattered school? “By 15 I didn’t see gaunt and tattooed.”
on his hands and, occasionally, he picks up anything worth sticking Three years after that he
and strums an acoustic guitar. A patch on around there for,” he was cast as the lead in 21 Jump
his jacket reads “Take no shit”. says. “I wasn’t dumb Street, the hit TV series about
We amble through the gallery, an ad hoc but I just knew I cops going undercover in
space in a 1930s building in Chelsea. There wasn’t going to be schools. It changed everything.
are a lot of skulls and skeletons. In one vast an accountant.” Depp was a star now, an actor
immersive room his voiceover drolly if Did his teachers by accident, something he
support his was so uncomfortable with
decision? “Yes! that he once defaced
When I first a billboard featuring
dropped out his character,
From top: in A Nightmare on Elm Street, I kept thinking Officer Hanson.
1984; with Leonardo DiCaprio in What’s about all the “I was so miserable
Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993; with Winona chicks I’d see in the doing Jump Street,”
Ryder in Edward Scissorhands, 1991 hallways that I had Depp says. “I mean, I was
crushes on, like this lucky as a bastard, but it was
chick Renee. So I went uncomfortable. It was around ➤

The Sunday Times Magazine • 35

 y the end of the night it’s as

B
if Depp simply wants some
At the opening of his company. He breaks out a bottle
immersive art exhibition of red wine — given that he used
A Bunch of Stuff in New to spend more than $30,000 a
York in September month on wine, I gladly accept a
glass. He proudly shows me a first
edition he bought of Arthur Rimbaud’s
poem Est-elle Almée? from 1872.
Then he shares the music he loves via
then people started whispering when I his laptop and a Bluetooth speaker. First,
walked in a room. This image is cultivated a cover of Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North
that you can’t control.” Country that he recorded with Marcus
How did he deal with fame? “Well, to Mumford of Mumford & Sons in Los
this day I just rarely go out,” he says, rolling Angeles. He says he loves the Dublin rock
out one of his loud, lengthy guffaws. “If band Fontaines DC. He wonders what
friends invite me out for Mexican, I say, the odds are on his old friends in Oasis
‘Dude, that’s sweet of you but I will ruin lasting an entire tour: “Noel is funny as
your night.’ My presence will bring f*** and I saw Liam at Glastonbury a few
attention and, Jesus, I have had almost years ago and he was positive, cool and
40 years of fame but I’m still not used sweet, which was great to see, because
to it. And I’m glad I’m not.” I remember another Liam from many
What advice does he give to Lily-Rose? years ago.” He mentions the guitarist Jeff
He smiles. “Sometimes kids say to me, Beck, who formed a band with Depp in
‘I want to be an actor, what’s your advice?’ his final years and died in 2023: “He was
And I say, ‘Don’t be!’ I know what’s coming my best friend.”
for them. I was chucked on that road and Depp clearly prefers the company of
the only advice that I can give is, ‘Don’t
allow anyone to make you something you “I RARELY GO OUT. musicians, spinning yarns about Kurt
Cobain and Courtney Love, and the time
are not.’ They’ll want you to be a poster boy
and it’s tempting — a lot of money. And
if that’s the direction you want? Go for it.
IF FRIENDS INVITE when he and Kate Moss went to St Barts
in the Caribbean — “That’s what Kate
liked to do!” — and were struggling to
But don’t let anybody choose for you.”
Hence his CV of oddballs, with Jack
Sparrow his only definitively mainstream
ME OUT FOR figure out the lyrics to the just released
REM song Find the River. In a bind, Depp
simply phoned up Michael Stipe, REM’s
part. As a child Depp loved the Three
Stooges, Abbott and Costello and Tex Avery, MEXICAN, I SAY, singer, over speakerphone.
Conversation meanders and opinions
and admired the 1970s counterculture
entertainers Andy Kaufman and Richard
Pryor. You can see this inspiration in Modi
‘DUDE, THAT’S tumble out — a few juicy ones that he takes
off the record, which given what else he is
happy to say indicates quite how juicy they
— “I love the timing, rhythm, madness.”
“And that’s my legacy, right?” he SWEET OF YOU BUT are. He laments a boom in reality TV, in
which “some f***ing guy from f***ing
continues. “My films. That is what I ended
up with after 40 years of making faces. And
my kiddies will live with that legacy as well
I WILL RUIN Podunk, Iowa, can get his own show” and
worries what quick-grab fame has done
to a generation. “Not necessarily all those
— they’ll have to carry my legacy with them
once I hit the skids.”
Which brings us back to the Heard trials
YOUR NIGHT’” kids stuck the landing particularly well.”
He sighs, a man who belongs to a bygone
era, when Hollywood made movie stars,
and how people he worked with spoke out not franchises and memes. “There was a
against him. While talking about Heard who lie to you, celebrate you, say all sorts of quality of person — comedian, actor. They
he is imprecise; when it comes to the film horror behind your back, yet keep the were unique, you know?”
industry he is clear and evidently furious money — that confetti machine going — Depp is going to miss this old London
about the Hollywood power-players because what do they want? Dough. home. After we meet he heads off to shoot
who jumped off what they considered a “I’ll tell you what hurts,” he continues. Day Drinker and he knows he is about to
sinking ship. His ire for them is bubbling, “There are people, and I’m thinking of be reintroduced to the world. But it seems
passionate. Take, for instance, his agent three, who did me dirty. Those people were like a world that he feels out of step from.
Tracey Jacobs. She signed Depp in 1988 and at my kids’ parties. Throwing them in the “I’ve a deep appreciation for times gone
made them both millions before he sacked air. And, look, I understand people who by,” he says. “There was simplicity, certain
her in 2016, reportedly citing financial could not stand up [for me], because the kinds of inherent moral, ethical standards.”
concerns. In deposition in the Heard trial, most frightening thing to them was And he thinks that has changed? “Yes,
Jacobs claimed some studios had become making the right choice. I was pre-MeToo. for the most part.” He talks about the dark
“reluctant to use” Depp because of his I was like a crash test dummy for MeToo. wooden floorboards under our feet and all
tardiness on set. Depp disagrees. It was before Harvey Weinstein.” Heard’s the people who have walked them over the
“As weird as I am, certain things can be accusations came a year before the centuries. And he talks about this quite
trusted,” he argues. “And my loyalty is the producer’s fall from power. “And I sponged sadly, in a way that suggests the past is
last thing anybody could question. I was it, took it all in. And so I wanted from the where he would like to be n
GETTY IMAGES

with one agent for 30 years, but she spoke hundreds of people I’ve met in that
in court about how difficult I was. That’s industry to see who was playing it safe.” Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness
death by confetti, these fake motherf***ers He pauses. “Better go woke!” he hisses. is released on July 11

36 • The Sunday Times Magazine

TABLE TALK
Last-minute
puddings

Skye McAlpine’s
pistachio cookies

PLUS It’s third time unlucky for Adam Kay ● Six great picnic wines ●
Mid-strength beers ● How to make the perfect roast potatoes
The Sunday Times Magazine • 37
 Right: chocolate hazelnut
mousse and lemon mousse.
Far right: cinnamon
sugar fan biscuits

S KYE 1 Combine 180g of the

M cAL PI NE pistachio cream, the flour
and the egg in a bowl, then
beat to bring it together into
t’s a misconception that

I
a crumbly dough. Roll it into a
you need lots of ingredients ball, wrap in clingfilm and put
to concoct a fine dessert. in the fridge for at least 20 min.
One of my go-tos, for
example, is sourdough toast 2 Heat the oven to 140C fan/
topped with shards of dark gas 3. Line a baking tray with
chocolate, a drizzle of olive parchment paper. Divide the
oil and salt — all things dough into 12 pieces, each
you probably have kicking roughly the size of a walnut,
around in the kitchen then roll each piece into a ball.
cupboard but I can’t tell Place on the tray, leaving at
you how good it tastes. Puff least 2cm between each piece,
pastry is handy to keep in the and gently press down on top
fridge for emergencies and can of each ball with your thumb
be magicked into all manner to make a little indentation.
of sweet treats, not least the
sugar biscuits here, but also 3 Bake for 15-20 min until
try cutting the pastry into lightly golden at the edges and
squares, spreading with Nutella, dry to the touch. Once cooled,
pistachio cream or jam, then spoon a scant teaspoon of
folding in two (like a sandwich) pistachio cream into the little
and baking in a hot oven for hollow on top of each one.
15 minutes or so until golden
to make “turnovers”. Otherwise, Chocolate hazelnut mousse
simply bake a sheet of pastry This is a wonderfully smooth,
whole until lightly golden all creamy and chocolatey pudding.
over, then, once cooled, top I make it with Nutella but you
with whipped cream and fresh can use whatever brand of
strawberries for a rough but chocolate spread you like —
showstopping galette. just make sure it’s at a runny
consistency before you fold it
through the whipped cream Scoop roughly 50g out of the fruit, rhubarb or pretty much
Pistachio cookies or your mousse will turn out bowl and set to one side, then any curd that takes your fancy.
These are little thumbprint lumpy. Once made, the mousse gently fold the Nutella through You can serve it in a glass or
cookies: not overly sweet, will keep happily in the fridge the remaining whipped cream small dish, but presenting it in
crumbly at the edges and for up to two days. until well combined. the zesty shell of half a lemon
chewy almost to the point of is always a showstopper.
being fudgey at the centre. The Ingredients 3 Divide the mousse across
pop of sweetness comes from (Serves 4) four glasses or small bowls Ingredients
the dollop of pistachio cream • 250g Nutella and chill in the fridge for at (Serves 4)
on top of each biscuit, but you • 300ml double cream least 30 min before serving. • 2 whole large lemons
could swap that for raspberry • A handful of fresh Top each portion with a dollop • 200g lemon curd
or strawberry jam. raspberries, to serve of whipped cream and some • 200ml double cream
fresh raspberries.
Ingredients 1 Briefly warm the Nutella 1 Slice the lemons in half from
(Makes 12 small cookies) in the microwave for 20-30 Lemon mousse end to end and scoop out the
• 300g pistachio cream seconds until soft and runny. This is such a simple way to flesh. Combine the lemon curd
• 150g plain flour make mousse it almost feels as and the cream together in a
• 1 egg, lightly beaten 2 In a large bowl whisk the though you’re cheating. You can large mixing bowl and whisk
with a fork cream until soft peaks form. swap the lemon curd for passion until it holds its shape.

38 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 KITCHEN CLINIC
Our experts
answer your
questions

Q How do you make the

perfect roast potatoes?
TM, Bath
A It all starts with the right
potato. For roasting you
want a floury variety such
as maris piper or King
Edward, which are soft
and dry, so perfect for
creating that fluffy middle.
Once you’ve peeled
them, chop into quarters
to maximise the number
of edges that will crisp
up in the oven.
Next comes the parboil.
There’s a debate about
how long you should
do this for. Tom Kerridge
and Heston Blumenthal
suggest boiling until
the potato is about to
fall apart. This is hard to
gauge, so I cook them
for no more than ten
minutes on a rolling
boil, until they have
just started to soften.
Drain, shake up in the
saucepan and then leave
to dry — the fat sticks
better to dry potatoes.
You can cook them in
beef dripping, duck fat,
2 Spoon the mousse into the all-butter puff pastry (ideally the centre. Sprinkle a little lard or even ghee. Animal
lemon halves and chill in the rectangular shaped) of the spiced sugar over the fat adds a rich flavour but
fridge until ready to serve. The folded pastry, roll the rolling olive oil can give just as
mousse will keep in the fridge 1 Heat the oven to 180C fan/ pin over a few times to press good results.
for up to two days. gas 5. Line a baking tray with the sugar into the pastry and Heat a generous amount
greaseproof paper. Combine fold over again so the two of oil or fat in a tray, toss
Cinnamon sugar fan biscuits the sugar and cinnamon in ends meet at the centre. in the potatoes and roast
These are elegant little biscuits: a small bowl and mix well. Sprinkle over the last of the for an hour in an oven at
buttery, flaky pastry, golden Sprinkle roughly three quarters sugar, roll with the rolling pin 180C fan/gas 4, tossing
and caramelised from the of the mixture evenly over a and fold in half, so you have halfway and turning up
PHOTOS: SKYE McALPINE. GETTY IMAGES

sugar coating. You can leave clean kitchen surface. something that looks like a to 220C for the last ten
the cinnamon out if you like or closed book. minutes. They’re ready
swap for ground mixed spice. 2 Place the sheet of pastry when they are golden
over the sugar and use a 3 Cut the pastry into short with a crunchy outside n
Ingredients rolling pin to roll backwards, strips, each roughly 1-2cm By Hannah Evans
(Makes 14-18 biscuits) pressing the pastry into the thick. Bake for 10-12 min,
• 70g caster sugar sugar. Fold the two short until lightly golden and the Send questions to
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon ends of the rectangle about sugar on top has caramelised. kitchenclinic@sunday-
• 1 packet of ready-rolled a quarter of the way towards Allow to cool before serving n times.co.uk
 R E S T A U R A N T S Adam Kay l

Its branches grow, but some

careful pruning is needed

BUBALA
KING’S CROSS

y wedding reception

M
was held upstairs at
the Ivy. Back then,
there was only one
Ivy: our favourite
spot in London,
where — in the
pre-soft-play days,
when our disposable
income wasn’t
funnelled directly
into Bluey Inc — we’d had our
favourite, joyous, boozy dinners.
It was the only possible venue.
But now, with an Ivy on every
high street, it’s like announcing
we got married at a Zizzi.
And here, with slight regret,
I present another cautionary
tale of overexpansion.
I love Bubala. It opened in
Spitalfields in 2019, offering a
vibrant take on Middle Eastern
food that was delicious, quietly
The carrot main was so bland it **************************************
vegetarian and deeply hip — not could have been a Sunday roast THE DAMAGE
that I’m in any position to judge **************************************
hipness, but various beard-oil side. I almost took a Covid test Falafel, tahini £10
users have assured me that it Pickles, laffa flatbread £8
was. Its firstborn arrived in We were welcomed in by a The falafels were 10/10. Just Hummus, burnt butter £8.50
Soho a few years later, and this brilliant Kiwi manager, but it’s the right amount of give on the Halloumi, marmalade £13
sequel proved even better. not quite the restaurant I know outside and fluff on the inside, Leek, amba, jalapeños £11
It was The Godfather Part II, — it’s cool and airy rather than all served on a tahini so white, Spanakopita borek £12.50
Thor: Ragnarok, Miley Cyrus. cosy, all concrete, exposed smooth and creamy it should Mushroom skewer £5
Bubala 3 is a 15-minute trek plaster and towering arched have an SPF number. Bread and Confit potato latkes £8.50
from King’s Cross station, windows. It would be hard to hummus were also spot-on. Carrot, feta, apricot £17
located in the sprawling say the place had much The laffa, a scorched flatbread Baked basbousa £9
techtropolis, presumably personality, as if it’s ready to threatening to become a naan, Bottle of Christina
to vary the lunch options be turned into a Wagamama tore with a sublime stretchiness Grüner Veltliner £46
for Google and Facebook or Côte at a moment’s notice. and was the perfect mode of Subtotal £148.50
employees. The walk gave You have the option of a £33 transport to shovel in the glossy Service (12.5%) £18.56
me plenty of time to hype up per person mezze sharing menu hummus, pimped up with nutty **************************************
the food to my husband, J. By or choosing, as we did, from the burnt butter. “See?” I said to J. Total (for two) £167.06
the end of my pitch, he was twenty or so à la carte dishes. But, alas, man cannot live **************************************
practically jogging there. We picked about half of them. on chickpeas alone. Charred

42 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 halloumi was squidgy and
succulent, the antithesis of
the squeaky vulcanised rubber
found at every barbecue. In
Soho, it comes topped with a W I N E Will Lyons l

phenomenal chamomile honey.

Here it’s been punished with
half a jar of marmalade. Sickly
and dissonant, it tasted as
The insider’s guide to
though a label had been misread
— even Paddington would what to drink outdoors
have scraped off the stuff.
The spanakopita looked
fantastic — a chimera of the
Greek staple with Turkish borek icnics can be so much more fun

P
2024 Castillo de Sierra Cava
pastry — but was polystyrene than fine dining or a meticulously Rosé Spain (11%) Morrisons,
dry; the fist of sesame-miso prepared meal. Often the joy of £7 A light, fruity sparkling rosé
chutney on the side delicious eating outdoors is its spontaneity, bursting with strawberry, red
but ultimately unable to simplicity and informality. So apple and cherry. Ideal for a
perform CPR on its neighbour. never mind the grand cru and relaxed evening in the park.
Leeks came doused in a the white tablecloth, make a last-
Mexican-themed gratinated minute dash to the supermarket 2024 Pinot Noir Romania
béchamel of jalapeños and for a selection of cold meats, a few (12.5%) Waitrose, £7 Romania
sheep’s cheese, with a tangy cheeses and, yes — a bottle of has an ancient winemaking
amba (mango pickle, to save you something light and refreshing. lineage and this marries a soft,
a google) reminding us we’ve A crisp, easy-drinking white with plenty of juicy texture with a wave of
got one foot in the Middle East. fruit is a good catch-all. Albariño, sauvignon inviting dark fruit. Great value.
But the leeks were unforgivably blanc, pinot grigio and vermentino all do
tough. The thoughtfully the trick; Tesco’s 2024 Wairau Cove Reserve 2024 Taste the Difference
provided utility knife wasn’t up Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (£10) Discovery Souvignier Gris
to the job — I think I’d have is a case in point, with its vibrant gooseberry France (12.5%) Sainsbury’s,
needed a power tool. and aromas of cut grass. £9.50 This blend of souvignier
I will forgive them for calling If it’s lunchtime you could choose a lighter gris and sauvignon blanc is
hash brown cubes “latkes”, but I wine such as M&S’s dry and refreshing 2024 vibrant, floral and refreshing.
can’t forgive them for the potato Classics No 7 Vinho Verde from Portugal
being grey. The carrot main was (£7.50), which is just the bottle for whiling 2023 Rimini DOC Bianco Italy
so underflavoured it could have away an afternoon with its slight spritz, (12%) Majestic, £10 A clean,
been a side for a Sunday roast green apple and citrus. On the subject of crisp, trebbiano-dominant
— I almost took a Covid test. spritz, our high streets are full of well-priced white from Emilia-Romagna,
The button mushrooms on the fizz. Try the floral and peachy NV Terre this imparts a zesty burst of
ILLUSTRATION BY ALEX GREEN / FOLIO ART FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, JASON ALDEN, SANE SEVEN. CHARLIE CLIFT

pickle plate were overly soft, di Faiano Organic Spumante Brut from citrus and a touch of apple.
slightly redolent of a Travelodge Emilia-Romagna in Italy (Waitrose, £11).
breakfast. The basbousa dessert, Given the British weather, it’s no bad 2024 Guigal Côtes du Rhône
a warm semolina cake with idea to pack a bottle of red for when the Rosé France (14.5%) Ocado,
pineapple and coconut, had dark clouds appear. You want something £14.25 This salmon-pink rosé
intricate flavours but was stone nice and juicy like a beaujolais, a southern is a full-bodied mix of classic
cold in the middle. Unforced hemisphere pinot noir or perhaps a light Rhône grapes, making it ideal
error after unforced error that northern Italian red, such as a dolcetto or for picnics and barbecues.
made me keep apologising to J. a valpolicella. More unusual is Portugal’s
Maybe these were all teething 2022 Sedoso Douro from the Co-op 2023 Cascina delle Monache
problems — the restaurant has (£8.75). Silky-textured and packed with Bricco della Lodra Italy (12.5%)
only been open a month. (“Ask red fruit, it’s a great pairing with cold The Oxford Wine Company,
your server about our daily wine meats. And if you’ve neglected £15.50 Dolcetto at its best, this
specials!” screamed a box on to bring the corkscrew, don’t lovely smooth red has hints of
the menu. I asked a server, who pass over the convenience violet, berry, spice and plum.
asked another server, who told of wines in a can. The
us there were no wine specials.) Uncommon English White
Maybe we caught them on an off Wine Spritzer (Ocado, Bargain of the week
day. Or maybe this is a moment £4.55 for 250ml) offers
for Bubala to take a beat, a slug of cucumber 2022 Finest Saint-Chinian
hopefully before branches start and the flavours France (13.5%) Tesco,
to take hold across the country of early summer. £8.50, down from £9.50
like knotweed. Or Ivy n Just the thing to A brilliant all-rounder that
Charlotte Ivers is away. get your alfresco oozes soft dark fruit, cherry
1 Cadence Court, Lewis Cubitt celebration and spice on the finish.
Park, London N1; bubala.co.uk under way n

The Sunday Times Magazine • 43

DIRECT
FROM THE
CELLAR

For 50 years, we’ve built close

relationships with exceptional
producers, so you get
privileged access to their
very best wines.

We choose our wines

as carefully as our words.

Discover more
sundaytimeswineclub.co.uk
 B E E R Pete Brown
l

Cheers to the taxman!

Small beer is big again
e drink beer for the end of it. Beer ABVs have pay a higher duty, from 2.8 to from 4.2 and 3.6 respectively to

W
different reasons. been creeping upwards since, 3.4 per cent. So if a beer is 1.2 to 3.4 per cent to take advantage of
Because it tastes thanks to the influence of 3.4 per cent, a brewer now pays the tax break. The huge savings
great. As a prop continental lagers (typically 5 less than half the duty they pay this has brought the brewers
for social per cent), but everything goes on beers of 3.5 to 8.4 (the duty have not resulted in lower prices
bonding, an in cycles and we’re increasingly on beers over 8.5 per cent was for the consumer. (Carlsberg
excuse to meet looking for beers that allow us hoicked up at the same time). says the cash lets it “invest in
pals in the pub. to drink without getting drunk. The response to the change innovation and in our portfolio”.)
For the warm, Low and no-alcohol products says a lot about the people who Alternatively, you could brew
fuzzy feeling. have made their mark. But mid- brew your beer. Multinationals a new beer specifically to taste
The advantage strength beers at 1.2 to 3.4 per slashed the ABVs on various great at 3.4 per cent or less. One
beer has over other drinks is cent ABV — often referred to as brews: Carlsberg Pilsner has in five small independent UK
that it makes it easier to control small beers — are on the up too. been reduced from 3.8 to 3.4 brewers have done exactly that.
the effect of the alcohol: the In August 2023 the per cent, while the Heineken- We’re probably never going
path to inebriation is longer, government raised the ABV owned Sol and John Smith’s back to the days when “small
so you have more time to enjoy threshold over which brewers Extra Smooth were reduced beer” was served in schools and
the taste and the social bonding. hospitals and “table beer” was
In the early 20th century, drunk by whole families. But
steelworkers, glassblowers and
miners wanted to drink a few
We’re probably never going back this selection of beers old and
new taste so good you’ll want
pints — partially to quench to the days when small beer was to drink them all day — and are
their thirst — and be able to low enough in alcohol that you
walk home in a straight line at served in schools and hospitals can get away with doing so n

Burton Bridge Newbarns Mosaic Mackeson Stout

Sunshine Pale (3.4%) Table Beer (3%) (2.8%) Morrisons,
burtonbridgeand newbarnsbrewery. 4x330ml, £4.75 Once
heritage.myshopify. com, 440ml, £3.40 a British bestseller
com, 500ml, £2.70 New-gen table beers (slogan: “It does you
The new team at this were pioneered by good”), this classic
43-year-old brewery Kernel in London. milk stout still clings
are making good beers This Scottish take on commercially.
stellar. Blonde and is made by alumni Comforting and
hop forward, this one Gordon McKenzie smooth, this was likely
tastes like a sunny day. and Emma McIntosh. your gran’s favourite.

St Austell Anthem Schöfferhofer Small Beer IPA (2.3%)

(3.4%) Tesco, Grapefruit (2.5%) Ocado, 350ml, £2.90
4x440ml, £4.50 Asda, 4x500ml, Small Beer spotted
The long-established £5.23 This fruity the mid-strength trend
St Austell is as exciting German wheat beer years ago, brewing
as any modern craft is a perfect summer half-strength that
brewer. Just launched refresher, like shandy tastes just as good as
VICKI COUCHMAN

in a can, Anthem but better. It’s also full strength. The IPA
uses UK hop varieties great in cocktails (for (also gluten free) just
that are fruity but ideas, see the brand’s pips the stout as the
nicely balanced. YouTube channel). best in the range.

The Sunday Times Magazine • 45

SUMMERTIME CELEBRATIONS

A day at the races, he summer is in full flow and with it a busy schedule of

luxury foodie retreat

or classical concert
– the social season’s
T must-attend events – from historic sporting occasions such
as the Henley Royal Regatta to fine dining weekends at
Wilderness Reserve and outdoor concerts at BST Hyde Park.
Leave the stress and logistics of getting there to Blacklane, the
global chauffeur service. You can arrive in comfort and style while
the chauffeur takes care of every little detail – keeping the car cool,
in full swing and your phone charged and refreshments in stock.
Blacklane’s luxury vehicles can be booked seamlessly in advance or
there’s one way on the go through the Blacklane app, ensuring utmost reliability and
to arrive in style a bespoke service tailored to your calendar. Now, all that is left to do
is relax and enjoy the summer socialising.

Henley Royal Regatta

1 July 1-6, 1.5 hours*

One of the world’s most exclusive

regattas is held in Henley-on-Thames
over six days at the start of July and
with it an exhilarating line-up of 400
knockout rowing races featuring
the best athletes in the sport.
When getting to Oxfordshire,
you don’t want to be worrying about
delayed trains or endless car park
queues, so instead, pre-book
Blacklane’s chauffeur experience
to guarantee a seamless door-to-door
journey. Plus, in a Blacklane vehicle
you’ll keep your formal attire looking
its finest for the Stewards’ Enclosure – the
place to be with its prime finishing line
location and exclusive crowd.

*Typical journey time from central London with Blacklane

 SPONSORED CONTENT

2 BST Hyde Park

June 27–July 13, 20 minutes

A highlight of summer in London,

BST Hyde Park transforms one of the city’s
favourite parks into a spectacular outdoor
concert venue. On the line-up this year are
legends Stevie Wonder and Neil Young as
well as some of the biggest names in pop
music right now: Sabrina Carpenter and
Olivia Rodrigo. To make certain of a VIP day,
you can order a Blacklane on the go in central
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for speed? Forget battling the crowds on
the Tube – this is the only way to travel.

BBC Proms
4 July 18–September 13,
20 minutes

Over eight weeks and 86 concerts, you’re truly

spoilt for choice at the world’s largest classical music
festival, which is held in London and select venues
across the UK. Highlights this year include an
all-female Last Night performance, an evening
inspired by hit TV show The Traitors and an all-night
performance organised by organist Anna Lapwood.
Make this special event an occasion by travelling in
style with Blacklane’s chauffeur experience. Sit
back, relax, ask your driver to switch the radio to
Classic FM to get you in the mood, and prepare
to arrive calm, unflustered and ready to soak up
a memorable musical evening.

Yoxman
3 July 9-11, 2.5 hours

With an all-star line-up of Michelin-starred chefs,

Yoxman weekends are the ultimate experience
for foodies and fine dining fans. The gourmet
extravaganzas are held at the spectacular
Wilderness Reserve, a collection of cottages,
farmhouses, barns and manors spread over
5,000 acres of woodland, lakes and pastures
on the Suffolk coast. The setting is as special as
the food but considering it’s a good two-hour
drive from London, your best bet is booking one
of Blacklane’s cars to start the indulgent weekend
as soon as you leave your front door.
ILLUSTRATIONS: SIMON SPILSBURY

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Win VIP Wimbledon tickets and
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One Times+ member will win an unforgettable Wimbledon experience.
A pair of reserved No 1 Court Debenture match tickets, a three-course
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T&Cs apply.
 F I TNE S S

Five ways to banish back pain

Keep your body moving with these “flexible friends”, says Tom Ward

sore back is more than — not to mention discomfort. deep in the lumbar region Lampier, a physiotherapist at

A
an inconvenience. Back “The back plays a vital role in just above the pelvis; and the Marylebone Health. “Alternate
pain is the largest single keeping our body moving,” multifidus, on either side of the sitting and standing, walk
cause of disability says Ollie Weguelin, a personal spine. “When we experience during phone calls, break up
in the country, with trainer and the director of injuries or tweaks, usually some long meetings with two
lower back pain alone Sustain Performance. or all of these muscles have minutes of stretching and let
accounting for 11 per Muscular pain in the back locked up and gone into spasm,” your hips and mid-back share
cent of the total tends to involve three muscle Weguelin says. the workload when exercising.”
disability of the UK groups: the erector spinae, While back pain might leave Here are five stretches to
population. This adds which connects the spine to the you immobile, the spine needs increase flexibility and help get
up to a lot of missed work days ribs; the quadratus lumborum, regular movement, says Shaq rid of your back pain for good n

1 Seated back relaxation 4 Knees to chest

“This reduces lower back tension,” “This helps to relieve tension and
Weguelin says. Sitting on a chair, lean promotes hip mobility,” Robinson says.
forward to place your hands on the floor. Lie with your back flat on the floor
You can use a block or your bag if you and breathe in. As you exhale hug your
can’t quite reach. Inhale and hold your knees to your chest, holding them just
breath for six seconds, thinking about beneath your chin. Hold for 20 seconds,
lengthening your spine as you do so. trying not to arch your back.
Aim for 10-20 breaths in and out.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MICHAEL PARKIN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE

2 Side plank holds 3 Cat cow 5 Thread the needle

“These strengthen the oblique muscles at “This encourages spinal mobility, segment Start on your hands and knees, then slide
the side of our torsos, improving spinal by segment,” Lampier says. Start on your right hand under your left, reaching
and pelvic stability,” Weguelin says. Lie on all-fours, with a slight arch from your across your body and upwards. Keeping
one side, propping up your upper body tailbone up to your neck. Exhale, then your hips and knees where they are, your
with your elbow under your shoulder, feet reverse the movement, lowering your back should slowly turn from horizontal
stacked one on top of the other. Lift up head and raising your tailbone. Think to a near-vertical position. Hold for five
your hips so the body holds a straight line. of a wave travelling up and down your breaths, then slowly return to the start
Hold for 20-45 seconds per side. spine. Repeat slowly for 10-15 reps. and switch sides, aiming for five per side.

The Sunday Times Magazine • 49

 D R I V I N G James May l

Everything sounds better in

Italian, including a V12 engine
all, of the 23 million Volkswagen tranquillity of God’s creation it costs £366,500 for antipasti,
REVIEW Beetles produced.
And then there is all the other
for everyone else. Yes, I own
a V8 Ferrari. It bellows like a
and, it being a Ferrari, you can
easily add another £100,000

FERRARI stuff: aeroplanes, diesel railway

locomotives, boats, chainsaws,
drunken hooray.
If you fit a “loud pipe” to your
to that with some coloured
stitching, an embossed horse,

12CILINDRI portable generators, some small

cranes, agricultural machinery,
go-karts and hateful strimmers.
four-pot hatchback or V-twin
motorcycle you are a net drain
on the happiness of society. You
wing shields, whatever.
Having named cars after its
founder, its country, its factory’s
Between them all they have will offend thousands of people location and its test track,
conspired to pound away, as you make your way through Ferrari has been reduced to
uninterrupted, since the 19th the world. The noise is horrid. naming a very expensive car
t’s impossible to arrive century. It’s an inconceivable Now to this Ferrari, the Dodici after the number of pistons

I
at a verifiable figure for number. Billions and billions of Cilindri. As ever, and like a beef flailing about under the bonnet.
the total number of engines. And the vast majority steak, it sounds better in Italian But there is some precedent for
internal combustion have made an appalling racket. but simply means “12 cylinders”. this. For many years, when all
engines ever produced. Car enthusiasts will hate me As an aside, the Reliant Robin, Ferraris were V12s, they were
Estimates suggest there for saying this but I stand by it: a plastic three-wheeler named known by numbers indicating
are about 1.4 billion of all the cars I’ve owned I can after a common garden bird, their “unitary displacement”,
vehicles with internal think of only one that made a would be, had Italians conceived ie the capacity of one cylinder.
combustion engines on vaguely pleasing noise, which of such a thing, the Pettirosso So the fabled 1950s Testa Rossa
the world’s roads, but was my V6 Alfa Romeo 164. It Vetroresina Tre Ruote. See? was a 250, making it 3.0 litres.
that doesn’t account for burbled nicely in the mid-range This is the convertible version. The very first Ferrari was the
everything that’s gone to and was subdued enough to be Of the Ferrari, I mean. 125S, a V12. Yes, your phone
the scrappy. That number enjoyable to those on the inside It is, say its makers, “a car for calculator is correct, it displaced
includes most, but sadly not without spoiling the peace and the few”. No shit, Sherlockosi; just 1.5 litres from tiny cylinders

50 • The Sunday Times Magazine

 One complaint: the 12Cilindri burn more fuel more quickly,
which translates directly to go.
is, like the gap between fashion Back to the Dodici. Its styling
CAR CLINIC
is a slightly odd mix, being Our experts
and my wardrobe, very wide kicked up and obviously “aero” answer your
at the back, but clearly nostalgic
at the front, with obvious cues questions
from the Daytona, including the
headlights and the clamshell
bonnet. I’m wary of retro in
modern car design, but Ferrari
is at least acknowledging the
Sixties and Seventies as high
points in car styling.
This is a “proper” front-
engined V12 Ferrari, displacing
6.5 litres (making it a 542) and Q The whole of the
producing 819bhp. There are southeast section of the
no turbos and no hybrid drive, M25 has a 50mph limit,
just 12 holes plugged with even though roadworks
demented metal that will spin ended months ago. Some
the crankshaft up to 9500rpm. of the overhead gantries
I’ll get a few complaints out carry fog warnings even
of the way. The 12Cilindri is, when there is none and
like the gap between fashion some say “System under
and my wardrobe, very wide. test”. What’s going on?
I don’t like the touch controls BL, Reigate
on the steering wheel. The wind A My colleagues in the
deflector is strangely more AA policy team advise
effective when lowered. The that National Highways has
and pistons. Enzo Ferrari top are straight sixes and V12s. stop-start system is deranged. been conducting tests of
himself described this car as These are the most acceptable I don’t understand the Italians’ the newest version of its
“a promising failure”, but also engine configurations, both obsession with covering stopped vehicle detection
said that the front-engined V12 technically and societally. everything in leather; I’d prefer (SVD) system and this was
philosophy was rooted in it. They are dynamically balanced, a modern fabric of some sort. the reason for the extended
What, exactly, is the point making for smoothness, and But now, that engine. speed restriction. By now it
of a V12 when so many cars can are more likely to make an It really is fabulous — packed should have returned to the
get by perfectly well with four agreeable sound. But I’m afraid with mechanical character, national speed limit.
pots in a row? First, there is a there’s more. sonorous and sparkly in a way The original SVD system
hierarchy of engines. The Enzo Ferrari was really only that suggests it’s fuelled with was trialled along this
bread’n’butter car engine of interested in racing — and gin and tonic. If I may invoke section of the M25, so this
Europe and Asia is the in-line therefore power. The pistons in my mild synesthesia, the same section has been
four; that of the new world is an engine have to go up and exhaust note is a graduated selected to test the new
the small-block V8. Recently down and, by increasing the purple and the texture is version. As the name
two and three-cylinder motors number of cylinders, problems something deeply and suggests, SVD is a safety
have been in vogue and there from “reciprocating mass” are deliciously savoury, like a system used on “smart”
have always been oddities from reduced, so the engine can spin gherkin with a pint of bitter. motorways that informs
Germany and Sweden, such as faster. Power, in physics, is I did once stretch it to its National Highways of any
fives and “inline Vs”. Then there defined as “the rate of doing 9500rpm redline, and the stranded vehicles in the
are some nice V6s and at the work”, so a faster engine can 12Cilindri became eye- live lanes. The AA has
distorting in its rapidity. I’m pointed out failures with
sure the handling is excellent the system in the past,
The Mayometer and that the “aspirated torque with stranded vehicles not
Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider shaping” software at work on always being detected or
the engine’s output graphs is the system taking longer
very effective. It matters not, than it should to register
because I would happily drive that a vehicle is in trouble.
1,292mm

this car around between idle National Highways is

and 6000rpm for ever. aware the testing has
We thought this sort of thing caused inconvenience
was starting to fade away, and but argues it is essential
4,733mm 2,176mm maybe it is. For now, though, to establish that the latest
sitting behind a proper V12 in SVD is effective n
Engine 6496cc, V12, petrol Power 819bhp @ 9250rpm an open-topped Ferrari is, Greg Carter, technical
Torque 500 lb ft @ 7250rpm Acceleration 0-62mph: 2.9sec though painfully exclusive and specialist, the AA
JAY BROOKS, ALAMY

Top speed 211mph Fuel 18.2mpg CO2 360g/km indulgent, a truly happy place.
Weight 1,620kg Price £366,500 Release date On sale now As St Augustine said, “Grant Send questions to carclinic@
me chastity and continence, sunday-times.co.uk
James’s rating but not yet.” n

The Sunday Times Magazine • 51

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Enjoy the life upstairs
 The word “ageing” is thrown
at women all the time. All this
pressure to look gorgeous and
youthful; spending hours doing
A L I F E I N THE D AY your make-up … It happened
when Mike and I got together.

Michelle Collins There’s more than 20 years

between us, so I was a “cougar”.
I hate that word. We get on, we
support each other, he makes me
Actress, 63 laugh. Isn’t that more important?
Having said that, he has
never been very kind about my
cooking. Understandable, really.
Once I made a stir-fry with

C
ollins was born in
Hackney, London, and daffodils, thinking they were
was brought up by her spring onions.
mother in Highbury. I was born in north London
She studied drama and I still live here. I love the
at Kingsway College. charity shops and my mum did
Best known for her role as too. It’s where she often found
Cindy Beale in EastEnders, clothes for me and my sister.
she has also appeared in Even in her later years she
Doctor Who and Coronation couldn’t resist a bargain. When
Street and on Loose Women. she died four years ago, all the
She returned to EastEnders local charity shop staff saluted
in 2023 after a 25-year as we went past.
break and makes her debut If I was starting out in acting
at the Edinburgh Fringe this today I don’t think I’d have a
year. She lives in north chance. You need to know
London with her husband, somebody in the industry and
Mike, and has a grown-up have parents with the money
daughter, Maia-Rose, from to support you. Even back in the
a previous relationship. day I was turned down for drama
schools because of how I talked.
I can’t lie around in bed, it seems As a working-class girl I felt like
such a waste. With EastEnders a minority in that world. Yes,
we often work from 7am to 7pm, you’ve got kids making short
five or six days a week, but even films on their phones now,
if I’m not working I’ll be up at but they still need to eat. It all
six. Mike always brings me comes down to money and if
coffee in bed. In my younger, you ain’t got it you’ll struggle.
party-girl days, breakfast was A whole section of society is
coffee and a fag, but now I have being locked out from the arts.
a bit of fruit and I’m straight out was so massive they came up Mike and I will sometimes
with the dogs, chatting to half in Princess Diana and James
WORDS OF WISDOM go out in the evening, but I like
of north London. Gilbey’s Squidgygate tapes. Best advice I was given parties that are over by nine so
There were times in the past Adam Woodyatt plays Ian; he Speak your mind. It’s I can be back home and in bed
when I wasn’t quite as chirpy. and I didn’t always get on in the something that’s got a lot for ten. I rarely go to sleep
Usually when there had been early days but there’s a lot more easier as I’ve got older straight away because there
a front-page picture of me after love and respect in midlife. are always five or six projects
a few G&Ts. It happened once Being in EastEnders has been Advice I’d give on the go. I might be learning
just before I opened the fête at incredible, although fame can Have lots of strings to your lines or looking for ideas for
my daughter’s school. She was be unsettling. After I split with bow. Don’t get too focused my TV production company.
only five and I could see all the my daughter’s father in my on acting. Write, make films, When it is finally time to
parents nudging each other. mid-thirties, I did get myself collaborate ... go to sleep I’ll find a nice, juicy
I was 26 when I started in into a bit of a state. I had left true crime podcast. Mike isn’t
EastEnders and nothing could EastEnders and I was depressed. What I wish I’d known keen on grisly murders at
have prepared me for the I honestly wasn’t sure I could Have confidence in yourself. bedtime, but I’ll happily close
impact. Viewers love to hate my carry on living. But then I You’re actually quite good my eyes while someone’s getting
character, Cindy; I get stopped thought about my mum. On her their head chopped off n
on the street more when she’s own, with two daughters, hardly Interview by Danny Scott.
naughty. People ask why she’s any money even though she Michelle Collins is at the
MARK HAYMAN

so horrible to Ian, her husband was working two or three jobs … Edinburgh Fringe from July 30
— they’re always fighting, like She never gave up and I decided in Motorhome Marilyn;
George and Mildred. The show I wasn’t going to either. gildedballoon.co.uk

58 • The Sunday Times Magazine

THE FAMOUS FIVE © 2025, Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved.

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