The Times 20231021 Magazine.pdf

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21.10.23
‘I’m a posh idiot who
makes comedy music’
‘I’m pretty shallow.
That’s why I love LA’
‘When I look back,
I want to punch
myself in the face’
HOW JAMES BLUNT
GOT HIS OWN BACK
PLUS
Beauty editor’s special
Best 36 products I’ve ever used
21.10.23
60
12
5
Caitlin Moran
Give me gas and air now!
7
Spinal column: Melanie Reid
Help, we’re
decluttering.
9
What I’ve learnt
I have a great body at 63, says Jean-Claude Van Damme.
12
Matt Hancock
Can the former health secretary reinvent himself?
20
‘Stalking is
an epidemic’
Isla Traquair describes her ordeal.
28 Cover story
James Blunt
Why the
singer is happy to be uncool. By Michael Odell.
39
Eat!
The only six pumpkin recipes
you’ll ever need.
50
How to tackle obesity
Rachel Sylvester visits Japan, where workers
take mandatory fitness tests.
56
Classroom secrets
The teacher brothers with a hit
podcast.
60
Angelina becomes Maria
Opera legend Maria Callas’s turbulent life is being
made into a film.
66 Beauty special
The lessons Lesley Thomas has passed on to her
girls. Plus, Nadine Baggott’s all-time favourite products.
76
Giles Coren reviews
Fish
Game, London E14.
82
Beta male: Robert Crampton
I hate clothes shopping.
ANTHONY LOYD
Our foreign
reporter’s 2022
Times Magazine
story about Isis
hostage John
Cantlie has
won the written
press award
at the Bayeux
Calvados-Normandy
Awards for War Correspondents.
FAB FIVE : HALLOWEEN INFLATABLES
COVER: ROBERT WILSON. JAMES BLUNT WEARS SHIRT AND
JEANS, ALLSAINTS.COM. THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES, ALAMY
PUMPKIN GHOST, £42.99
Has built-in lights
and stands 9ft high
(diy.com)
SPIDER, £99.99
9ft wide with ropes
to attach to windows
(smiffys.com)
MUMMY, £ 55.25
Stands almost 8ft
and self-inflates
(wayfair.co.uk)
GRIM REAPER
ARCHWAY, £9.99
12ft tall. LED-lit
(xs-stock.co.uk)
CLOWN, £99.99
Nearly as tall
as two people
(smiffys.com)
EDITOR
NICOLA JEAL
DEPUTY EDITOR
LOUISE FRANCE
ART DIRECTOR
CHRIS HITCHCOCK
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
JANE MULKERRINS
ASSISTANT EDITOR
TONY TURNBULL
FEATURES EDITOR
MONIQUE RIVALLAND
CHIEF SUB-EDITOR
AMANDA LINFOOT
DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR
JO PLENT
DEPUTY CHIEF SUB-EDITOR
CHRIS RILEY
PICTURE EDITOR
ANNA BASSETT
DEPUTY PICTURE EDITOR
LUCY DALEY
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
BRIDGET HARRISON
COMMISSIONING EDITOR
GEORGINA ROBERTS
The Times Magazine
3
CHOSEN BY GEORGINA ROBERTS
CAITLIN MORAN
I
After
72
hours of childbirth, I wanted to be
shot. You try having a baby without drugs
don’t want to give away where my
sympathies lie on the following
issue too early – plus, I’d like to
think I have enough writing
chops to work in a certain
amount of ambiguity – but, just
for context, my first childbirth
experience was 72 hours long,
left me with lifelong nerve damage and
was so excruciatingly painful that
halfway through I genuinely thought
I was going to die.
By the time they got that baby out
– emergency C-section, me vomiting over
the side of the operating table in shock
– I had stopped being able to say anything
but “mouth” for over 12 hours.
“Mouth” meant, “Put the gas and air in
my mouth.”
“Mouth” was all I had left. “Mouth”
was the only thing that had stopped me
from begging simply to be shot in the
head, to make it all end.
So. This month it was suggested that
in Scotland women in labour should
stop being given gas and air for pain
relief in a bid to make the NHS more
environmentally friendly.
“Entonox is a potent greenhouse
gas contributing to climate change.
Within NHS Scotland, Entonox alone
is responsible for an emission footprint
similar to that of 18,000 flights from
Frankfurt to New York,” a report by NHS
Scotland Assure stated. They suggest
that, to be more green, labouring women
are instead given an injection of water.
Water! Water. But
sterilised
water so, you
know, a treat.
Now obviously I’m all for the whales
and the planet – a) those guys are cool,
and b) I have, as yet, nowhere else to live
– but I’m surprised to see that effective and
crucial pain relief for women in terrible
agony is getting a green audit before, say,
the 163 million single-use plastic cups the
NHS gets through every year. I’d be
issuing a report titled “Could swap for
cardboard cups???” way before I got to
“Start querying proven agony solutions”.
Still. I’m not one to stop progress.
And I really love those whales. I’m ready
to listen to all evidence. What’s the deal
with the water? It’s good, right? You
wouldn’t swap out hardcore analgesics
for a refreshing cup of water without
good reason.
Well, the National Childbirth Trust
website says, mildly: “There is some
evidence [water injections] can help.”
I don’t want to read too much into one
sentence, but “some evidence” sounds really
non-committal and as if it were delivered
with an “It’s up to you” shrug. It feels
like it’s comparable in vibes to a lavender
spray or a really good playlist. Maybe one
with some superchill Van Morrison on it.
Just to be clear, while it’s not good to
be
overly
fussy (no woman wants to be a
burden!), if you’re clinging to the railings
of your bed in a mucksweat, feeling like
your entire body is being alternately chewed
and crushed by a force beyond mortal
comprehension – and that’s just a
baseline
description of a hard labour: the full
commentary usually takes two bottles of
wine and weeping – then someone offering
you something with “some evidence” of
“help” is likely, I’m sorry to say, to receive
a wild kick to their own reproductive
area. Just so they’re on “the same page”,
pain-wise. And might have “empathy”.
I’m sorry to sound so emotional but,
as many, many women who have given
birth will tell you, it’s often a process in
which you get the distinct impression
that no one really cares about you.
Experiences vary – and my second birth
was a
dream,
albeit one I paid £4,000 for
– but get any group of mothers together
and a good proportion will get quite
tearful as they talk about understaffed
wards, devastatingly brusque midwives,
badly sewn wounds, incontinence, missed
complications and almost non-existent
aftercare. It took
20 years
for anyone
to notice that my abdominal muscles had
not knitted back together after my
first
pregnancy,
resulting in a sizeable hernia
and constant back pain.
Twenty years!
And
even then it wasn’t a medical professional
– it was a successful romantic fiction
author who pointed it out over lunch.
Forgive me then if I seem outraged
that pain relief for labouring women is so
far the only medical/health procedure that
seems to have been targeted for a green
audit, before erectile dysfunction medicines,
Botox, hair transplants, wart removal or
163 million plastic cups. I don’t want to
be too partisan towards my gang, but
I just feel instinctively that when you look
at a woman deep in the throes of labour,
you should be thinking nothing other
than, “You know what? I’ll give that bitch
a break. She’s got a lot both on her plate
and in her cervix right now.” Women are
good at multitasking, but we can’t give
birth
and
save the planet
at the same time.
Just… give us the drugs.
n
The Times Magazine
5
Gas and air are
contributing to
climate change? You
cannot be serious.
So now we’re told to
give birth AND save
the planet
ROBERT WILSON

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