Esther Watson

‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,’ was an offhand comment made by Kate Moss 15 years ago, one that she is yet to live down and has had to repeatedly apologise for since. Ms Moss might not be Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s obvious role model, but the recent proclamation that he fasts for 36 consecutive hours is certainly more Vogue than Downing Street. Fasting is good for the waist line but it also makes people irritable, erratic, and error prone The Prime Minister has revealed that he doesn’t eat from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday morning. He is an intermittent faster, in other words, and intermittent fasting is a fad that has risen in popularity in recent years.

‘She’s the kind of girl you wish lived next door, but she’s never going to,’ said the photographer David Bailey, speaking about the supermodel Kate Moss, who turned 50 this week. Moss has for three decades been a magnet for tabloid gossip and a muse to culturally influential people.Marc Quinn made sculptures out of her in 18-carat gold and she often sat for Lucian Freud. Even when flagrantly selling out – see for instance, her recent campaign for Diet Coke – she somehow manages to keep her cool Envied by some and lusted after by many, Moss was throughout her modelling career a rebel with a single cause: to have a good time. ‘I remember my mum telling me that you can’t have fun all the time, and I still hold my answer true today when I told her, “But, why not?”.

In the wake of Philip Schofield’s ‘unwise but not illegal’ relationship with a much younger employee, ITV have issued a new policy. It requires staff members to declare the names of their ‘associates’ and the ‘nature of their relationships’ on a Google Forms questionnaire. This is frankly a pathetic attempt to stamp out abuses of power in the workplace. And it risks killing off something I feel quite strongly about: the office romance. We must protect that at all costs.  Elon Musk discourages employees from being friendly with each other as he believes ‘comradery is dangerous’ Bores think that romantic office relationships are unprofessional. In fact, they are entirely healthy and natural.

Matthew Perry, who died yesterday, was the funniest of the Friends – and the saddest. 'What must it be like to not be crippled by fear and self-loathing?' his character, Chandler Bing, asked. It seems Perry never quite figured out the answer. Chandler was a brilliant comic creation – and Perry, a melancholic clown, perfectly suited to the part. Perry stood out among his Friends castmates with his impeccable comic timing and the unique cadence with which he delivered his lines.  To most of the world, he will always be Chandler – the brilliant, charming, sad-funny clown But he was insecure and addictive. Perry once said that, when the live studio audience of Friends didn’t laugh at one of his jokes 'I felt like I was gonna die'.

Let me start by saying I didn’t watch Beckham because I am a football fan. What I’m really interested in is the art of spinning gold from thin air, something David Beckham and his family have excelled at. So I zoned out when it came to discussing the intricacies of Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson’s relationship in the 1990s, or the pain he felt when leaving Manchester United, the only club he ever wanted to play for.  The Beckhams have carefully curated what they were willing to share, all under the guise of being candid No, I was after the behind-the-scenes access to all things Brand Beckham. What does he really think of the fact Victoria has only eaten steamed fish and vegetables for over a decade?

Fifteen years ago there was no such thing as a social media influencer, but fast forward to 2023 and there are now an estimated 50 million full-time ‘creators’ worldwide. It isn’t hard to understand the appeal; no nine-to-five, no domineering boss, no skills, experience or talent necessary. Little input for potentially incredibly high returns, especially if you successfully find a niche.  I cannot think of anything less appealing than broadcasting images of where I sleep to the world A cleanfluencer from Northern England went from working at M&S to sharing her cleaning tips full time which led to a book deal with Penguin; Live, Laugh, Laundry (I kid you not).

Vogue recently announced that Harry Styles had travelled to Normandy where he had his portrait painted by the British artist David Hockney. It wasn’t the meeting of two cultural icons that caught my attention, or the fact that the unphased Hockney described the world’s biggest popstar as ‘just another person that came into the studio’, but instead it was Styles’s sartorial choices.  https://twitter.com/TheHarryNews/status/1686731114033938432?s=20 The gym bros I went to school with are downing a protein shake in pretty pearl necklaces Styles has long been associated with the gender-bending fashion trend we have seen in recent years.

Two years after his death, the army veteran and patron saint of the NHS, Captain Tom, is in the headlines again. Hannah Ingram-Moore, his daughter, has come under fire for allegedly using the Captain Tom Foundation's name to build a spa and swimming pool complex at her house.  The story of Captain Tom captured the jumbled imagination of the British public during the pandemic. In April 2020 at the height of the coronavirus fright and lockdown, Captain Tom decided to walk 100 laps of his garden to raise £1,000 for the NHS in honour of his 100th birthday. In under a month, he raised £39 million.  In a time of depressing, repetitive news cycles, Captain Tom was instantly catapulted to the status of national treasure.

In 1970, Glastonbury was a humble new festival for ‘free thinking people’. Entry cost £1 and you were given free milk for the duration. Today Glastonbury attracts more than a quarter of a million people from all over the world. Tickets cost £335, reassuringly expensive enough to keep the riff-raff out. You’re more likely to pitch your tent next to a corporate lawyer than anyone devoted to the counter-culture. Glasto is the culture now — and in 2023 the culture is the exorbitant cost-of-living. A pint of beer at the festival costs £7; half a pint of Coca Cola is £3.  Most events at Left Field could easily be staged at the Tory party conference later this year Glastonbury is still primarily about music, thank goodness.

Like everyone else I’m enjoying the boozy antics of Man City’s Jack Grealish. He’s spent the last few days partying following Man City’s victory in the Champions League, behaving exactly how a 27-year-old who earns £15 million a year should behave. He’s having a ball and who can blame him? But there’s a difference between Grealish and the rowdier footballers of not so long ago – Wayne Rooney, say, or Gazza. It’s the accessories: Grealish keeps photographing himself in a pearl necklace. He and his Man City teammates have been seen clutching man bags that look suspiciously like handbags. Indeed, in 2021, Grealish was photographed wearing a £1500 Christian Dior ‘crossbody man-bag’ which looks like something a gaudy aunt might want.

There is much concern about the frightening advance of AI. In Los Angeles, members of the Writers Guild of America which represents 11,000 writers have entered their fourth week of strikes. They are demanding, among other things, higher pay, and crucially, that the studios guarantee they won’t slice into writers royalty payments by crediting AI tools such as ChatGPT on scripts.  There is indeed a real threat of screenwriters' jobs becoming redundant as AI advances. Yet the streaming services who employ writers are far more likely to self-sabotage long before AI becomes sophisticated enough to produce television and film scripts worthy of being made.

The Met Gala, in case you didn’t you know, is held in New York on the first Monday of May every year to raise money for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. The theme of last night's event was 'Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty'.  Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who chooses the theme, has come in for much criticism for her decision to honour Lagerfeld, the German fashion designer who died in 2019. Lagerfeld is today known as much for his controversial views as his achievements, which include transforming Chanel from a legacy brand into the most sought-after fashion house in the world.  Lagerfeld viewed sweatpants as a ‘sign of defeat’. He thought anorexia wasn’t as dangerous as junk food or television.

Those of us who worship at the altar of reality television have Jerry Springer to thank (or to blame).  Springer was an early pioneer of reality TV. His show was the beginning of the end of television as the world once knew it. You didn’t need to be talented or interesting or rich or even beautiful to garner attention. He brought a new kind of intrigue and voyeurism on to our screens – he showed people to people as entertainment.  He made ordinary humanity extraordinary: shouting, screaming, even, on occasion, violence featured on his show Despite beginning his career in politics, working for Bobby Kennedy before becoming the mayor of Cincinnati, Springer was best known for the self-titled Jerry Springer Show which ran for 27 years.

It was announced today that Lilt, the drink with the ‘totally tropical taste’, is being discontinued three years before its 50th anniversary. The drink will be rebranded as part of the ‘Fanta family’. A senior representative from Coca Cola, the parent company, has sought to ‘reassure Lilt’s loyal fanbase that absolutely nothing has changed when it comes to the iconic taste of the drink they know and love’. Well, we aren’t reassured. How can these people expect us loyal Lilt drinkers to trust them when they didn’t even have the decency to give us advanced warning of their plans and time to come to terms with this shock – and, more importantly, stockpile? Lilt matters.

A transgender woman and a non-binary person dressed as Satan walk into a bar. That’s not the beginning of a bad joke, but the defining performance of the 65th Grammy awards, held in Los Angeles on Sunday.  You may have seen the clips. The singer Sam Smith wore what appeared to be a terrible Halloween costume: red high heels and a red hat with devil horns. He clomped around the stage performing 'Unholy' with Kim Petras, who was in a cage surrounded by flames and whip-wielding dominatrices.

The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has urged civil servants to trade shirts and ties for woollen polo necks under their suits. It’s part of a drive to heat ministries to no warmer than 19°C – a policy that is compulsory in all government buildings except hospitals and care homes. French petit fonctionnaires can take inspiration from President Emmanuel Macron, who has been leading by example in a classic black polo neck. Ca chauffe! Le Maire’s suggestion has been criticised right and left. The leader of the opposition, Marine Le Pen, tweeted ‘Don’t have enough heating? Let them wear cashmere’, and Gaspard Gantzer, a former adviser to the socialist president Francois Hollande, labelled the idea ‘grotesque and paternalistic’.

Don’t Worry Darling, the highly anticipated psychological thriller directed by Olivia Wilde, has arrived in cinemas after months of online gossip and speculation about its production. The controversies include: an alleged affair between the director and main actor, Harry Styles, who also happens to be one of the most famous pop stars on Earth; the firing – no, sorry, ‘replacing’ – of the originally cast main character (Shia LaBeouf was switched for Styles); a reported fall-out between lead actress Florence Pugh and Wilde, which led to Pugh not doing any publicity for the film; and a bizarre TikTok theory that Kiki Layne and Ari’el Stachel were hired to meet the Oscars new diversity requirements only to have most of their scenes end up on the cutting room floor.

As temperatures soar and the will-to-live wanes, there is something that promises to get us through this unbearable heat. No, it’s not a pair of Chanel espadrilles, or a Balenciaga beach ball. It’s something versatile, accessible and varied. When it’s this oppressively stuffy outside and in, the only real pleasure is to quench the unavoidable thirst. I’m talking about drinking — and I don’t just mean alcohol. Here are five cooling liquids which do that better than the rest:  Mango Lassi Lassis originated in India 1000 BC.  The drink is widely believed to have Ayurvedic healing properties and can calm both stomach and mind.