The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an environmental, political and financial catastrophe that killed 11 men. It was also completely avoidable. Jason Anderson was an oilfield man to the soles of his cowboy boots. When he was relaxing — home from working the rig at his isolated country house in Midfield,[…]
Before he discovered his mistress was talkative, before Claridge’s lost a Michelin star, before a debt crisis threatened to scuttle his business, before he breached the covenants on a 10.5million pound loan, before he was halfway lynched for abusing an Australian television presenter, before the smudges in his official biography were exposed, before the critical[…]
Tony Judt is dying, cruelly. Eighteen months ago the British historian — a professor of European history at New York University and the author of Postwar, a bravura history of the continent since 1945 — was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Known in the US as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a motor neurone[…]
Michael Clohessy returned from Iraq with a distinguished war record — and ended up in prison. Our jails are swollen with former soldiers. Why can’t they stay out of trouble? When the sniper opened fire, Michael Clohessy reacted first and fastest. It was the summer of 2004, and the 26-year-old private from Walton in Liverpool[…]
Meet Alex. He is 26, handsome, privately educated, and, for most of his week, a freelance director of documentaries. His wardrobe is immaculately shabby: designer jeans, cast-off T-shirts and vintage trainers. The kitchen of his boutique Victorian terraced house is decked with a vast, chrome Smeg refrigerator, a dining table for 12, and two sinks[…]
Greatness is something that happens to other people. When the critics began to hail Don DeLillo as one of the most significant American novelists — when, correctly, they positioned his postmodern masterpieces White Noise and Underworld among the great books of the 20th century — he noticed only passingly. On winning the National Book Award[…]
Britain spends £250,000 a day supporting the UN peacekeeping force charged with ending the war in Congo. So why is there no conclusion in sight to a conflict that has already claimed more lives than any since WWII? GQ reports from the shifting front line of a human rights catastrophe The shoeless headmaster said it[…]
The Irish actor thought that Winston Churchill was an imperialist bully. Now that he’s played the role, has he changed his mind? Stately, plump Brendan Gleeson folds himself into the sofa, rests his paws on his knees, and begins one of his long-distance sentences — sentences that can fill minutes and rooms; sentences with their[…]
An interview with the Irish author of Let the Great World Spin, a 9/11 novel set in 1974. Philippe Petit should be charging commission. Not only was his audacious wirewalk between the twin towers on August 7, 1974 the subject of James Marsh’s joyous 2008 documentary, Man on Wire, but it is now the focal[…]
As the citizens of the Islamic Republic Of Iran prepare for this month’s presidential election, GQ gate-crashes Tehran’s underground nightlife and discovers a seditious secret society flourishing in one of the most repressive nations on earth. Ed Caesar reports. The room smells of smoke and sex. The excitable, scruffy boys, cradling glasses of bootleg vodka,[…]