The Observer Magazine - 5 June 2022

50 Pages·2022·27 MB·English

The Observer Magazine
555555555555555555555555 JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 22222222222222222222222222200000000000000222222222222222222222222222222222222222
MMeeeett AAnnssoonn BBoooonn,,
tthhee nneeww JJoohhnnnnyy RRootttteenn
TThhee gguuiillttyy rriicchh wwhhoo aarree
ggiivviinngg aawwaayy tthheeiirr wweeaalltthh
‘‘II’’mm 8800,, aanndd aa wwiiddoowweerr
iiss oobbsseesssseedd wwiitthh mmee’’
y
n
n
u
S
side up
GGeett bbeeaacchh rreeaaddyyy wwiitthh oouurr gggglloorriioouuss gggguuiiddee ttoo tthhee UUKK sseeaassiiddee.. TThhee bbeesstt
ccooaassttaall hhootteellss,, rreessttaauurraannttss,, ssuurrff sscchhoooollss,, sswwiimmssuuiittss aanndd fifi sshh && cchhiippss……

5 JUNE 2022
The Observer Magazine Summer
seaside
guide
35
In thhiiss
issuuee
32
Up front
5 Eva Wiseman It’s time to unlearn the
summer “rules”. Plus, the Observer archive
7 This much I know Actor Indira Varma
Features
8 Shooting from the hip Anson Boon
on drinking tea, living with his parents –
and starring as Johnny Rotten in Pistol
12 Dog days Even the most lovable pooch
leaves their owner with a messy problem
20
16 Wealth warning Meet the guilty rich
who are giving away their family fortunes
Food & drink
20 Nigel Slater Glorious gooseberry
pudding and goat’s cheese tart
25 Jay Rayner An Indian restaurant
adding spice to the suburbs
Summer seaside guide
30 Coast with the most Make a splash
8 with our fun-fi lled guide to all that’s great
about the British seaside
Fashion
30 37 Costume drama Best bathing beauties
Beauty
39 Good to glow Try our pick of 10 of
the best sunless tan home treatments
Interiors
40 French connection Inside the craft-
fi lled Oxfordshire home of the Toast boss
Gardens
43 Sweet and sour Growing gooseberries
Self & wellbeing
M
O 44 Mind over matter How to make
C
S. decisions in high-pressure situations
K
R
O
W Ask Philippa
D
ETE 16 46 “A needy widower keeps pursuing me.”
PL Plus, Sunday with Nish Kumar
M
O
C
Y
B
E
C
A
L
K
C
COM); NE Contributors Ainf wteor msteanr’tsin mg ahgisa z cainreese,r DRaocchueml Benutjaalrsyk pi ihso btaosgeradp inh ethr e TThhee OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOObbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbssssssssseeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeerr MMMMMMMMMMaaggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzii5555555555 JJJJJJJJJJJnnUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 222222222222222ee0000000000022222222222222222222 ThMK ianegg Oasz bPisnlaeecr, vee, r
A. Michael Hogan is now San Francisco Bay Area. Her 90 York Way,
ERES Joanna Moorehead wrote her a freelance writer and work – mainly examining the L(0o2n0d o3n3 N531 92G0U00 )
TH fi rst-ever national newspaper TV critic. Originally lifestyles and stories of people magazine@
MY piece for the Observer more from Suff olk, he lives in living on the fringes of society observer.co.uk
MARNI ( than 30 hyaepaprys atog ob,e a wndri itsin vge ry two childLroennd aonnd w reitshc huise pdaorgt,n er, that matkoed uapy A –m hearsic aapnp ceualrteudre MtTg‘iMtTg‘iIIsshhii’’hh eemmvveeooeeeeii bbnnnn ttgg88ss eeggAAuu00eeww nnaaiiss,, l l wwssaassttJJooyyeeoonnaa ddhhnnrrddyy iinn ww BBccaattnnhhhh iioowwttyyee oowwhh iiiiRRnnrrdd hhmm oo,,wwoo oottwweeeet t aa’’eeaaeerrnnllrreetthh PWVricaintlsotetreidaa adBt uR soicnhees,s
BY for us still. In this issue Betty. He commutes to a shed in National Geographic Park, Roche,
R Victoria,
PE she speaks to two at the bottom of his garden, and the New York St Austell
GE: JUM taobpo pust yhcohwo ltoog biset sm ore wtimheer per hoec rsapsetinndast itnogo o mn uTwchit ter. Tpihmoetosg. Thra pish ws etheek ,s schioen s SSuussnnnniinnddyyee uupp PL26 8LX
A
S P eff ective at decision Th is week, he interviews the who are giving away G G ee tt bb ee aa cc hh cc rrooeeaaaassddttyyyaa llww hhiiootthhttee oollssuu,, rrrr eeggggsslloottaarruuiioorruuaassnn ggggttssuu,, iissdduueerr ttffoo ss ttcchhhheeoo UUoollKKss,, ss sseewwaassiimmiiddsseeuu.. iiTTttsshh eeaa nnbbddeess fifitt sshh && cchhiippss…… Cover image
THI making (p44). actor Indira Varma (p7). their fortune (p16). Shutterstock
The Observer Magazine 05.06.22 3

Up front
Eva
Wiseman
Tips for a ‘hot girl
summer’ are as
frazzling as ever…
 @evawiseman
T
he concept of a “Hot Girl summer” lives to didn’t walk up as many hills. My friend and I became
see another June. We gave it a go! We gave obsessed with getting ‘Sheffi eld legs’.”
it a good go, tried our hardest, sloughing Flirting was an art. One woman learned to
dead skin in an attempt to free the hot girl “coquettishly put things against your lips and into your
beneath. “Save me!” came her voice, muffl ed mouth to imply being ‘up for it’,” but never wear bold
as if from the bottom of a well. But try as we may, for lipstick because it scared boys. I loved : “Smile brightly
most of us a Hot Girl summer was not realistic. Instead the fi rst two times he looks at you, then the third time
we are heading towards a Blobfi sh summer, fl oating look very sad, so he can come and ask you what’s wrong.”
very close to the ground with low-density fl esh. A I think about it a lot now, the girls at discos doing
naked mole rat summer, dumbly burrowing into our a happy, happy, sad dance with their lipglossed mouths.
own subconsciousness, pink, cold-blooded, unable No wonder so many boys found girls so confusing ;
Cornish coast changed all (or unwilling) to feel pain. Our summer identities are no wonder that baffl ement continues into adult
From the that, introducing something sadly only an inch away from our winter ones, the main relationships with similar rules drawn roughly in sand.
entirely new – fi breglass difference being sleeves. Much of my magazine education was about
archive Malibu boards. We meet the It’s at this time of year that I start to think about international travel, which had little relevance to an
Newlings, a family of seven the lessons I learned from teen magazines, growing audience more likely to go camping in Wales than long-
A look back expert surfers, including the up. Every June, a new version of the ancient pursuit of haul fl ights on which we must spritz our faces with cool
fi ve kids ranging from 8-18. a “bikini body” arrives. And with it, sense memories that water every three hours. Similarly, their anti-ageing tips
at the Observer
Between them they helped are diffi cult to shake. My education at the hands of Just (apply moisturiser in upwards strokes!) were precisely
Magazine’s past to kick start the Cornish Seventeen, More!, Sugar and their sisters remains carved as useful as More!’s “position of the fortnight”, yet on
surfi ng industry. Half into the hardest part of my brain like initials on a tree. As a summer’s day I can reel off every one to order.
a century later you’re spoilt age has caused it to scar and gnarl, the lessons – always These fl akes of knowledge rise to the surface as
for surf schools there . change into a white T shirt before you get off a plane, the weather turns: the smell of cut grass, a yearning
Th e Observer magazine’s Th e guide to summer blast your hair with cold water before getting out of the for Orangina, the fact that you can make a boy fall in
cover story for 3 August accessories is as groovy as shower – have now become part of me. More than any love with you by syncing your breath with his. And
1969, ‘Th e Art of Enjoying you’d expect for the 1960s. petty maths or science I learned at school, these, I realise none more so than the importance of “getting sexy
Summer’, off ers a unique Th ere’s an Aeolian harp, as summer comes, are my foundations. for summer”, using small wisdoms we internalised –
snapshot of what we Chinese wind chimes to So it’s a pity, looking back, that so many of these prevent overeating by pouring salt over your food after
desired most when hang in a tree or a Japanese lessons, swallowed hungrily by girls like me, desperate half a plate, a “healthy nutritious shake” for lunch, suck
temperatures soared. We beaded curtain to rustle for a rulebook with which to navigate that cold and your stomach in at all times. This year, rather than sink
know we’re at the tail end gently in the breeze... just sticky world, were grounded in shame. Not only were once more into that pit of inadequacy, I want to uproot
of the 1960s with a spread add patchouli oil. Elsewhere, diet tips standard, but they were the sort of tips that those lessons, inspect their powers under the light, see
entitled, ‘Keeping cool in an astute observation of today would result in online scandal. Chew every how they’ve adapted over time, and work out how to
sticky situations’ featuring seaside sun worshippers mouthful 100 times, they said. If you’re hungry have unlearn them so as to avoid transferring their weird
a languid Mick Jagger-ish hints at an obsession with a big glass of water, they said. The primary role of poisons to my children. Apart from the rinse your hair in
model, a white electric guitar body image that was only fashion (I learned at 12) was to help control and create cold water thing. That’s going nowhere. ■
and the cover of a Jeff erson just revving up for the rest the illusion of a compact body, rather than the morphing
Airplane LP. of the century and beyond. fl esh sculpture that formed around us as we slept. They’d new Elizabeth Line made
Along with the heady ‘When we strip to take the give us a problem (cellulite, muffi n-tops) and then offer One more me sad in many ways.
nostalgia of what to listen to sun...the male peacock and ways to fi x it, a project intended to last a lifetime. Every Th e most immediate being:
in the sun (a Philips am/fm vain female concentrate month we were treated to a fl ow chart where we would thing… have we so little joy in our
radio and cassette recorder, on the body itself, and as discover which fruit our fi gure most resembled, and lives today that we must
ideally, under ‘wisps of much energy goes into which jeans we should purchase to disguise it. The rules celebrate the fact that
cloud in an azure sky’), there presenting a tanned and for neutralising our bodies and faces were complex it’s a bit quicker now to get
are some clues as to what satiny torso as ever went and witchlike. When I asked Twitter what lessons had to Woolwich?
has endured and what has into the ruffl es and frills of stayed with them, one of the fi rst women to reply said:
changed compared to our winter.’ Emma Cook “Dig a hole under your beach towel, so you look thinner When I saw Ricky Gervais’s
seaside special today. tanning.” A shallow grave for your teenage shame, with anti-trans jokes, which
Back then, surfi ng was room to dig deeper when the cancer hits. I loved the fi lm Everything punch down at a small
still in its infancy on British Despite sex being a distant fantasy for my friends Everywhere All At Once, group of vulnerable
shores, and we discover and I, we all knew how to spice up our love lives by the which uses the concept of people, I thought
in a report, ‘It’s not Malibu age of 13. Rather than learning about, say, pleasure a multiverse to brilliantly immediately of Lindy
but...’ Instead, it was and consent, every British girl of my generation could examine the possibilities of West’s viral piece ‘How
a slightly eccentric pursuit describe how to alternate between a mouthful of tea and life, and the choices unmade. To Make A Rape Joke’: ‘Th e
that,‘until 1960 had been ice to give our “boyfriends” a blowjob to remember. A lot But annoyingly, now I am best comics use their art
done lying down on short of time was spent adjusting our lives, posture and bodies forever wondering, what if? to call bullshit on those
plywood boards’. A small for the boys in magazines. On Twitter, my friend Sophie terrible parts of life and
band of Australians arriving remembered, “A boy in a ‘What do boys really want?’ quiz Th e news that Londoners make them better, not
to work as lifeguards on the said girls in London had less shapely legs because they ‘got up early’ to travel on the worse.’ Exhausting.
The Observer Magazine 05.06.22 5

Up front
This
much
I know
Indira Varma, actor, 48
Interview MICHAEL HOGAN sibilant Watford accent. I’d be curious to in my infant school playground. On my praying. Valium was being taken. But
Photograph MISAN HARRIMAN know what she thought. fi rst day on set, there were Stormtroopers there were two young kids in front of us
in the desert. It’s like being inside your going “Wahey!” with their arms in the air.
You can’t fart above your arsehole. childhood dreams. They thought they were at Alton Towers.
My mum would leave me in Bath’s That’s what my mother used to tell me. It
public library on Saturday mornings so sounds better in French, but means we’re The closest I’ve come to death was Talent without discipline is a bad
she could go s hopping. I was three or all the same, so don’t think you’re better. on a plane recently. My daughter and habit. A drama teacher told me that.
four. My mum’s nickname for me was I were fl ying back from Switzerland You might think your vitality will shine
“Muni” – if she couldn’t fi nd me, she’d call Awards don’t matter until you get during Storm Franklin . It was a small through, but don’t piss in the wind. You
it really loudly. In a library. Mortifying. given one. I didn’t realise I was the fi rst aircraft and we were being tossed about. have to graft hard to succeed.
person of Asian origin to win the Olivier I held on to her hand. People were
My mixed heritage has opened my Award until someone told me afterwards. I love to swear. I’m liberal with the
eyes into how other people live. My mum I was like, “ Ben Kingsley, surely?” I do the voice of C-word and F-word. Sometimes it’s
is Swiss, so I’d enjoy the luxury of her deeply inappropriate. In America, they
parents’ house: views over Lake Geneva, Growing up, I wanted to be a clown. Priti Patel for think I’m very together and quite posh,
delicious chocolates, deep bubble baths. Or a mime artist. Or David Attenborough. then a stream of swearing comes out .
Then we’d visit my dad’s family in India, Spitting Image .
where there was no water after midday There’s a Lego fi gure of me coming The kindness of strangers is real. It’s
I’d be curious to
and rats running around . out. It’s incredibly surreal being part a pity we become mistrustful of people.
of the Star Wars franchise [Varma plays The minute you engage with someone
know what she
I do the voice of Priti Patel for Spitting an Imperial offi cer in the new series honestly, they open up. ■
Image . I mean, it’s not very good. I’m not Obi-Wan Kenobi ]. It’s the backdrop to my thought of it
an impersonator, I just do this slightly life. I was pretending to be Princess Leia Obi-Wan Kenobi is streaming on Disney+
The Observer Magazine 05.06.22 7
For Anson Boon, being
‘It’s
now or
never,
this
is my
chance
cast as Johnny Rotten is a dream come true. But what’s punk taught him?
S
omething is clearly wrong, I realise,
as Anson Boon sips peppermint tea
in a plant-filled café in east London,
relishing one of the last moments of calm
before his career blows up. The 22-year-
old actor can soon be seen playing the
punk icon Johnny Rotten in Pistol, Danny
Boyle’s new six-part Sex Pistols biopic on
Disney+. It’s the sort of role that will defi ne how he’s seen
for years to come: menacing, volatile, a little dangerous.
And yet, how to put this? He’s so nice! So un-punkishly
pleased to be here. The kind of boy my mum would love,
all “Yes mate!” and “I love my pubs!” and “I’m moving up
in the world” (in reference to the fact that his tea comes
in an actual pot).
No one in his family or circle has ever done anything
remotely like acting, he says. What made him want to be
an actor? “Honestly, I have no idea, mate!” But he does
know it’s what he’s always wanted to do – he’s always
made people laugh by doing stupid impressions. His mum Go ahead, punk: Anson
has a picture of the Hollywood sign that he drew when he Boon wears jumper
was six. But when he left his comprehensive school at 16 by Marni (mytheresa.
he had no connections in the acting world or really a sin- com); necklace by
gle clue what he was doing. completedworks.com;
He did, however, have the internet. He made his way trousers by casablanca
into the industry by watching how-to videos that various paris.com and boots by
casting agents had uploaded on to YouTube. “I asked for christianlouboutin.com.
a proper camera to do auditions for Christmas when I was Facing page: jumper by
17 and I bought myself some blue wallpaper because they jilsandercom and necklace
‹
say blue is fl attering for self tapes,” he says. “I didn’t go by hattonlabs.com
Interview RICHARD GODWIN
Photographs NICK THOMPSON
Fashion editor HELEN SEAMONS
The Observer Magazine 05.06.22 9