I like to go against the grain

Financial Times | 17 Jan 2004

Top chef Rowley Leigh starts his FT cookery column this week and tells Caroline Phillips about his robust, refined style.

• Interviews,
• Food

Patricia O’Neill: Animal House

The Sunday Times Magazine | 19 Sep 1999

They call it, with some affection, Broadmoor. At least, that’s what they say in the family. To others, however, it is Broadlands, the stud farm belonging to the horse breeder and animal conservationist the Hon Patricia O’Neill.

She has 42 stray dogs who move in packs through her house, and a kitchen carpeted with yapping Pekingese. She also has a donkey, jackal, lynx, chimp, 200 parrots, 40 stud ponies, a cage shared by a tortoise, cockerel, monkey and rabbit, plus 19 rescued baboons – some living in a room with filing cabinets and books.

• Interviews

Did I let teacher take a crisp from between my thighs? Yes! Yes! Yes!

The Express | 11 Oct 1997

The designer turned novelist tells how real life has inspired her first foray into fiction. Bella Pollen, once an internationally known fashion designer trading under the name Arabella Pollen, has just published her first novel, All About Men.

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Perhaps I was promiscuous but now I wouldn’t even cross the road for an affair

The Express | 11 Oct 1997

After three failed marriages, the time has arrived for Sian Phillips to dote on her cats.

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I don’t feel at all guilty about my affair with Harold Pinter

The Express | 11 Oct 1997

For Joan Bakewell, it has been The Unmentionable. Ever since it was “exposed”, the broadcaster has refused staunchly to discuss her seven-year affair with playwright Harold Pinter.

• Interviews

Ingrams on death

The Week | 4 Oct 1997

Richard Ingrams, the former editor of Private Eye and now editor of The Oldie, has been dwelling on mortality.

• Interviews

He’s 60. She’s 33 and pregnant by another man. Why is Richard Ingrams thinking of death?

The Express | 27 Sep 1997

Richard Ingrams, former editor of Private Eye, looks away as he shakes my hand. He’s imposingly tall and wearing his habitual cords, a jumper full of holes and undone laces.

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I don’t go around clomping women but Rula drove me to a state where words weren’t enough and I lashed out

The Express | 23 Aug 1997

The poster outside the Brighton theatre shows a tough, tight-lipped guy: Dennis Waterman playing an ex-con in the new thriller, Killing Time. The real Dennis stands in front of his image reading a review, wearing shades, loud check shirt and gold medallions. Dennis in this incarnation is lean and taut with a knuckle-crushing handshake.

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Stalked, beaten, raped and bribed …but I know the thin line between fact and fantasy

The Express | 5 Jul 1997

If you encountered her as a character in a novel, you’d find her barely credible. “I’ve been stalked, battered, raped, bribed, attacked, kicked and threatened,” the prize winning author Lisa St Aubin de Teran mentions casually.

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I have a very bad karma with fleas

The Express | 28 Jun 1997

It’s important to know the etiquette when you greet a baby lion in the bush. A big-boned woman gets down on all floors on the dining room floor. “You’ve got to put your head down,” she demonstrates in a loud American voice, her long blonde hair tumbling to the floor. “Then the lion scrams your hair.”

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To be sawn in two is of great interest. I’ve never been cut in half before.

The Express | 28 Jun 1997

The enigmatic Sir Jimmy Savile talks for the first time about his quadruple heart by-pass operation.

• Interviews

Will the miracle happen? Will Di’s frock star marry Maya?

The Express | 7 Jun 1997

• Interviews