The Times - Access Interviews

Diego Maradona

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

The Argentina coach hits back at critics, saying: "I didn't hear anyone complaining in 1966 when Hurst's goal was given". A despatch from his press conference in Scotland...

Beth Chatto

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

It is a sharp and blustery sunny day, and Beth Chatto is at home near Colchester, Essex, looking out on a garden still seething with colour and vigour, even at this late stage in the year. Of all the 20th-century horticulturalists in England, she is perhaps one of the best known and most enduring. Her celebrated garden and nursery of 3,000 plants, her books, her international lectures, her medals (ten consecutive gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show) and, most treasured of all, her OBE received from the Prince of Wales in 2002, all testify to a life of rare achievement. The life is such that the Garden Museum in Lambeth, South London, is marking the opening of its new building with a retrospective of her life and work. “Beth Chatto is England's most influential living gardener,” says Christopher Woodward, the director of the museum. “Her garden is as complex in its ideas and influences as any major work of art, music or literature.” Chatto herself confesses to being a little uncomfortable at being the focus of attention. She is slim and alert, with peppery curls, a polished pumpkin face and a fruity air of plenty. When she smiles, about 50 of her 84 years disappear. She sits in a favourite armchair looking out on a sensuously beautiful garden. Opulent clusters of red, green and golden leaves rise and fall in a progression of shapes, following patterns of themes and repetitions. In the 1960s she carved this garden out of dull agricultural land. It took years to establish, and now she says her challenge is “to prevent it from becoming an old lady's garden”.

Adriano Graziani

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

For an opera singer, timing is vital. Adriano Graziani’s could not have been better. Graziani, 32, had called up for tickets to a gala concert last month by Welsh National Opera only to find himself taking centre stage hours later as the original tenor had fallen ill with a cold. The singing student, a former banker in the City of London, had less than two hours to remind himself of the scores and make his way to the Millennium Centre in Cardiff for a last-minute rehearsal before the evening show. Now his performance, which received a standing ovation from the 2,000-strong audience, has led to a request for him to perform a lead role with the Welsh National Opera in a production of La Bohème next year. ...

John Simm

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

After Life on Mars, John Simm is happy to be himself and to play the antihero in The Devil's Whore, a new period drama. After Life on Mars won an Emmy in 2006, John Simm decided to try “the LA thing”. He met the revered director-producer J.J. Abrams, who leapt off his chair, shouting: “John Simm, no way!” The Lancashire actor was taken to meet a room of scriptwriters. “They all stood up and started clapping. I'm thinking: ‘Jesus Christ, this is unbelievable, Hollywood is mine!' Next thing I know, I'm auditioning for one of J.J.'s television programmes. Hang on a minute, I can get TV programmes in England, without auditioning.” Simm, 38, has a strange relationship with America: it keeps remaking programmes that he's starred in, from Life on Mars to the forthcoming feature film of State of Play. He's a bit grumpy about this and won't be watching Russell Crowe as the hard-nosed reporter Cal McCaffrey. “It's my role. I read all six episodes without taking my coat off. It took Paul Abbott six hours to tell that story; I don't want to see the Hollywood blockbuster version.”

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Tim Mason has heard it all. Ever since the Tesco executive launched the supermarket giant's Fresh & Easy venture in America a year ago, analysts have accused him of missing sales targets by a mile, while unions pushing for negotiating rights have complained that staff morale has fallen through the floor.

Pam Ann

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Is comedian Pam Ann a flight to remember or running on autopilot? Pam Ann, the Sixties-style self-appointed queen of the skies, airline owner and stewardess, is embarking on the next leg of her journey towards world domination, and she doesn't much care whom she offends en route. As she takes off the rituals of flying in her variety-style shows, real “rival” airlines are often the target: British Airways trolley dollies are all “jolly hockey sticks”, Virgin Atlantic crew are a bit sexy, and so on. Her stand-up set is peppered with camp song-and-dance numbers, which may seem like light relief next to her harshly observed audience interaction and her trademark brutal double entendres. Critics have occasionally argued that she's riding a one-trick pony that will soon get tired, but Pam's real-life alter ego, the comedian Caroline Reid, has faith in the character she created in mid-1990s Melbourne. If it is a one-trick pony, then “the pony's been pretty good to me” she says, referring to a cult following in her native Australia, highly successful UK tours and Edinburgh runs. She's even supported Cher and provided in-flight entertainment on Elton John's private jet. Later this month she's transforming the Hammersmith Apollo into her very own terminal, the Hammersmith Layover, for two nights. “They'll be the biggest and best shows in my career. It's going to be like a massive party,” she explains.

George Osborne

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Britain is heading for a “collapse of sterling” if Gordon Brown persists with trying to borrow his way out of trouble, George Osborne says in an interview with The Times today. Risking accusations that he is talking down the pound, the Shadow Chancellor mounts a ferocious attack on the Prime Minister, accusing him of following a deliberate “scorched-earth policy” that would leave the economy in a mess for the Tories to inherit. Mr Osborne, ignoring the convention that senior politicians do not predict runs on the pound, says that the country knows instinctively that no government can borrow its way out of debt. He claims that the weight of debt will stifle recovery and also create a big risk for sterling. “Sterling has devalued rapidly against the euro and the dollar. We are in danger, if the Government is not careful, of having a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound. The danger of a run on the pound . . . is that it pushes up long-term interest rates, which is a huge burden on the economy. The more you borrow as a government the more you have to sell that debt and the less attractive your currency seems.” THE INTERVIEW: In the Conservative Party’s Hundred Acre Wood, George Osborne has always been Tigger to David Cameron’s Christopher Robin. The Shadow Chancellor is a natural optimist, bouncing back enthusiastically after every setback. As an aide, he used to cheer up John Major and William Hague in the bleakest times. A year ago he delighted his party by bouncing Gordon Brown out of holding an election. Not only was he the Conservative leader’s best friend, he was his closest political ally, the joint architect of the strategy for modernising the Tory party. But in the past few weeks he has had his tail between his legs. The backbench Eeyores have begun moaning that it’s all going horribly wrong. The media bees have started to sting. There has been speculation that he might be left in the nursery. His misjudgment over a yacht in Corfu has, critics say, been compounded by his inability to give a clear alternative to Mr Brown on the economy. His confidence seems to have been shaken. As his ebullience has deflated, so has the Tories’ poll lead. Mr Osborne admits that it has been a tough few weeks. He will not, he tells us, be going back to Corfu next summer. “I regretted the whole farrago. I made a mistake — not because I broke any law or rule, I never asked for a donation, nor did I receive one — but it didn’t look good.” He is determined to win back those in the party who have questioned his political acumen. “My door is completely open to anyone who wants to talk to me,” he says.

Leon Fleisher

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

The pianist Leon Fleisher is back playing with two hands In his youth the brilliant pianist Leon Fleisher lost the use of one hand. Then, 35 years later, he suddenly regained it. He’s returning to our concert halls and his music is soaring

Beyoncé

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Her partner wowed Glastonbury, her music sells millions and her private life keeps everyone guessing. We talk to an unusually demure superstar. On the steps of the Mandarin Hotel in Knightsbridge, Beyoncé Knowles is meeting the paparazzi. From the hotel foyer, looking out into the filthy London rain, hair in a functional ponytail, she is a petite silhouette in the flashbulbs. A couple of young male fans are allowed to step forward for a moment with their heroine. Instinctively, the first places his left arm around the singer. No less instinctively, a vast minder detaches the arm from Beyoncé's sleeveless designer dress and puts it back where it came from. It's an episode that flags up something unusual about Beyoncé's brand of star quality. Fans of, say, Madonna or Cher would never put an arm around their idol and, although she is only 27, Beyoncé has had plenty of opportunities to finesse their brand of starry untouchability. It is three years since she dissolved Destiny's Child after three albums and a run of award-winning hymns to womanly empowerment such as Survivor and Independent Woman; six since her duet with the Brooklyn rap demigod Jay-Z served notice to the world that America's foremost hip-hop star and its emerging queen of R&B;were an item. In the past year alone, she is said to have earned $80 million (£54 million) from record sales, film appearances and endorsements. Yet in the flesh, it all seems a galaxy away from her disarmingly open body language and megawatt smile. ...

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Alexey Mordashov, the owner of Russia's biggest steel company, is in London to talk to investors about its move into goldmining. Despite booming profits from SeverStal - the latest profits rose by 69 per cent - those investors have been unnerved by its recent pursuit of gold.

Steve Wiener

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

What’s that noise? Dun-did-dle-dun-dun dun-dun-dun . . . It’s Steve Wiener, boss of Britain’s second-biggest cinema chain, dreaming of how much money James Bond is going to make him.

Josephine Hart

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Josephine Hart tells Melissa Katsoulis that hearing the works of the great poets is food for the soul

Clint Eastwood

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Clint Eastwood the bashful legend. At 78 Clint Eastwood is still making movies — and will be until he’s finally dragged off set. Clint Eastwood is like God: you see him in everything he touches. A 78-year-old superstar and ten-time Oscar-nominated director/actor/producer, his inviolable “go ahead, punk” machismo lives in the cultural ether, in his pantheon of unforgettable heroes and, especially, in the very fibre of the movies he makes. In his most recent, the Angelina Jolie period drama Changeling, it’s there in the rousing moment when Jolie’s heroine, Christine Collins, wrongly imprisoned in a brutal psychiatric hospital and facing electroshock therapy, turns to the imperious hospital boss, Dr Montgomery (John Harrington Bland), and defiantly hisses out her most Clint-like line: “F*** you, and the horse you rode in on.” Collins is the protagonist in a bizarre struggle — based on real events in Los Angeles in the Twenties — over her son’s identity. After he was kidnapped, the police returned to her the wrong boy and coerced her into accepting their mistake. As played by Jolie, with taciturn resolve and tough determination, she is the direct descendant of Eastwood’s own iconoclastic heroes, from Josey Wales to Dirty Harry. In fact, in her toughest moments, such as when she slams the child killer Gordon Northcott (Jason Butler Harner) against the bars in San Quentin prison, Jolie becomes nothing less that Dirty Harriet herself. No? “I think that would be a bit too fanciful,” Eastwood says with a modest chuckle. “Maybe she was that in her last movie, Wanted [in which Jolie played an assassin], but here she begins vulnerable and becomes strong and persevering.”

Alan Carr

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Crap comedian comes clean for our Honesty Box. I wouldn't be where I am now without... my parents. They didn't agree with some of the things I've done, such as taking dramatic arts at university. But they have always been very supportive. If I could change one thing about me... it would be my receding hairline. My eyesight's gone, my knee's gone, my back's gone and I've got psoriasis. I'd love to keep hold of my hair. ....

Gary Rhodes

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Gary Rhodes, 48, is a chef and restaurateur known for his love of British cuisine with a modern twist

Andrew Cole

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Former England striker brings curtain down on a career of numerous highs that ended on an unfortunate low. Andrew Cole today announces his retirement to The Times. A miserable November day, in an upstairs room at the offices of his management company, was not the time nor the place that one of the best centre forwards of his generation had hoped to call time on a distinguished career. When Cole signed for Nottingham Forest, he dreamt of going out in a blaze of glory, of shooting his home-town club back into the Premier League. Instead there were tears. Cole, 37, made an acrimonious departure from Forest 11 days ago and yesterday spoke for the first time. Cole voiced regrets at his lack of opportunities at the City Ground, at the mixed messages from Colin Calderwood, the club's manager, and at the inevitable whispering campaign that followed his exit - but he came across like a man who had been relieved of a burden. Characterised, by his own admission, as “narky, sullen and unapproachable”, the former Newcastle United, Manchester United and England forward was at peace with himself, if not with Calderwood, as he contemplated his first steps as a coach or manager. “It's not the ideal ending,” Cole said of his exit from Forest, his contract having been cancelled by mutual consent after he failed to score in 11 appearances. “It just wasn't working out. I told them from the outset that I didn't want to go there to sit on the bench because I didn't want to be perceived as sitting back and making easy money. I wanted to go there and offer something, but it was a strange one from the start. I never knew what my role was. Was it to lend a hand, use my experience, or was it a PR thing, to sell a few more season tickets? I still don't know. I felt like the manager wouldn't have a conversation with me. I don't know if it's the right word, but he seemed kind of intimidated by me. ....

Bill Bailey

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Bill Bailey's comic targets include the lofty giants of capitalism, whom he attacks like “some beardy bloke shaking a fist”

Trevor Phillips

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Equality chief condemns glass ceilings in politics. ‘Brilliant as he is, Obama would not have got into Downing Street’. Trevor Phillips’s youngest sister rang him in tears from America at 6.15am on Tuesday, saying: “I just voted. I just voted.” Ten hours later, his elder sister telephoned after she had cast her ballot for Barack Obama as well. “I had to tell her to stop crying too,” he said. It is clear that the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who went to school in Guyana and whose wife is Indian, was moved by the election of the 44th President of the United States. He watched the results come in at the Operation Black Vote party in London: “That was where the brethren and sisters had gathered, so it was quite cool. “This is the first time that a black person has seriously had an opportunity. It is not that you couldn’t identify with John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, but for most of my lifetime there has not been a possibility for a black politician to be anything other than an insurgent.” Britain’s most prominent black campaigner is, however, angry that the election has all been about race. “One of the things that has irritated the hell out of me in the last 48 hours has been all the stuff about Barack Obama being the first black President. It’s a deep insult to the guy. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime political phenomenon, a rock star, a single political lightning strike. It’s not that he’s black.” People should not reduce him to the colour of his skin. “We would never do that with a white politician. We didn’t reduce Bill Clinton to a good old boy from Arkansas. Barack Obama has rewritten the rules of politics: someone with only two years of experience can’t get to be the candidate, you can’t beat the Clinton machine, you can’t make that much money, you can’t make young people vote. That’s not contingent on his race.”

Alice Braga

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Latina actresses have never been hotter in Hollywood: Eva Mendes, Jennifer Lopez, Eva Longoria... and now Alice Braga

Scouting For Girls

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:21:27 +0000

Scouting For Girls don’t care what you think of them, just don’t call their fans idiots