Bear Grylls’ Island

Bear Grylls’ Island

Published in The Times It’s day three of my stay on a desert island in the Pacific, and as it rains ceaselessly in London and temperatures hit zero, I am lying under a tree on a bright white beach alongside two young women who have quickly become friends, watching the...

Samuel L. Jackson

Published in The Times There’s an awkward moment, for me at least, near the beginning of my meeting with Samuel L. Jackson in a hotel bar in Atlanta, Georgia, when I ask him for his opinion on 12 Years a Slave and he leans back in his leather chair, strokes his grey...
William Boyd

William Boyd

Published in The Times When William Boyd was commissioned by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd to write a new James Bond novel, he talked about the gig as if it were the fulfilment of a life’s dream. He had, he said, first fallen in love with 007 when he was a boarder at...

Beef

Broadcast on the BBC, 2001 Over the years I have shed many of the outward manifestations of my Sikh upbringing. I cut my long hair off when I was 14, 5000 days of hair growth falling to the floor of a barber’s shop like a dead crow. I last danced to bhangra at a...