Table Of ContentMAGAZINE OF THE YEAR
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THE ANCHORMAN
HOW BROADCASTER DAN WALKER PULLED IT OFF
PLUS JANICE TURNER: WHAT WENT WRONG AT THE TAVISTOCK CLINIC
18.06.22
42 18
5 Caitlin Moran We need positive algorithms. 7 What I’ve learnt Being trolled helped me develop a thick skin, says DJ Jo Whiley.
9 Spinal column: Melanie Reid My tip for preparing a meal? Mind your fingers. 10 Cover story Dan Walker The new face of Channel 5’s
evening news talks faith, death threats and the BBC brain drain. 18 The City assassin Meet Fahmi Quadir, the short-seller on a mission
to expose corruption and fraud. 22 Inside the gender clinic Why the NHS Tavistock Centre is facing a backlash from former staff and
patients. 31 Eat! A Middle Eastern masterclass from Honey & Co. 42 ‘I never blamed my mother for the abuse’ The Antiques Roadshow
expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan talks about his traumatic childhood. 48 Keith Richards and me The A-list music PR, Barbara Charone,
on her exploits with the legendary guitarist. 57 Shop! Your holiday wardrobe. 60 Giles Coren reviews The Woolpack, Gloucestershire.
66 Beta male: Robert Crampton Kids, don’t forget me on Father’s Day. Cover photograph: Mark Harrison. Stylist: Monique Rivalland
FAB FIVE: DECKCHAIRS
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MA DEPUTY ART DIRECTOR JO PLENT DEPUTY CHIEF SUB-EDITOR CHRIS RILEY PICTURE EDITOR ANNA BASSETT DEPUTY PICTURE EDITOR LUCY DALEY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR BRIDGET HARRISON EDITORIAL ASSISTANT GEORGINA ROBERTS
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The Times Magazine 3
CAITLIN MORAN
My plan to make the internet a happier place
What we need are algorithms that cheer us all up
T
wo or three times a week, pleasant content, ever more factual and peer-
I like to put aside half an researched, which make everyone feel more
hour or so to Not Be Charlie benign and connected to each other – make
Brooker, creator of Black us, basically, friends again?
Mirror – the sci-fi TV series- If people can be radicalised online into
cum-worldwide smash. In religious extremism, racism, homophobia,
Black Mirror, each stand- misogyny, conspiracy theories and science-
alone episode is devoted to denial, then surely you could use exactly the
– and here I will be brisk, but same algorithms, flipped on their head, to
also accurate – some aspect of either human radicalise people into loveliness instead? When
nature or technology that is absolutely f***ing falling down a rabbit hole of online content,
horrible. Robot dogs become murderous; why are we not led to progressively more
parents put chips in children’s heads so they cheering and inspiring stories of individuals
can censor what they see; the dead live on, who are brave; communities that are
downloaded into androids, with strange results. innovative; inventions that could transform
Brooker is, I think, a disappointed idealist, and the world for the better?
so the message is: human beings tend towards I think it’s notable that this is what the
darkness, the future will be even more terrible majority of the animal content on social media
than the present, and it is our technology that provides: the half of social media that isn’t
make both so. “angry shouting” is rammed with big-hearted
I am also an idealist, but not a disappointed pigs who’ve “adopted” kittens or crows that
one. I am a tenacious idealist. I will just not have learnt tobogganing using margarine
give up on the idea that the future could be lids. Online, we appear to have outsourced
marvellous. And anyway, since Black Mirror everything that is benign, uplifting and
began, 11 years ago, things have changed: amusing to animals, leaving everything that is
we’ve moved beyond the Noughties’ slightly dispiriting or hateful to humans. Why are we
shellshocked belief that what happens on “the using the astonishing, miraculous invention
internet” is some kind of force of nature that of global communication to do such a terrible
fell out of the sky to be feared rather than PR job on our own species? Why, with all the
what it is – something invented and used by billions of wonderful things in the world, are
normal human beings. Something we could we repeatedly served with the bin-juice?
actually plan and control. I understand that any vaguely hippyish
And the main thing we know about sentiments are always apt to be dismissed
now – compared with 2011 – is algorithms. unless you deploy the magic phrases “consumer
We’ve read about how many of them are choice” and “market forces”, at which
deliberately engineered to keep people online point you are suddenly considered to be an
longer; how the ones used by YouTube and admirably hard-headed realist again. I would
Facebook “drive users to progressively more just like to ponder, then, the fact that in a
radical content, over time”. Children searching world where “consumer choice” is still touted
for “boobies” are, within a week, watching as the trump card on any issue, none of
hardcore strangle-porn; middle-aged dads us yet has the option to click on “optimistic
The half of social
typing “bad knee what do?” are taken from algorithms” on our platforms and browsers,
homeopathy to antivax propaganda to the and thence voyage through the internet on an
media that isn’t ‘angry
Great Replacement theory in under a month. upward path of increasing reasonableness and
And the more people click on bad things, joy. Possibly subsequently leading to TV shows
shouting’ is rammed
the more bad things are provided. It’s an where loudmouthed hosts who “tell it like it is”
unvirtuous circle. shout about how brilliant things are; the BBC
with big-hearted pigs
So what I was wondering last week, commissions Room 102, on which panellists
while Not Being Charlie Brooker, was: is it nominate all the best things in the world; a time
or tobogganing crows
possible to reverse the polarity of the internet? where “the future” isn’t automatically presumed
Instead of what are, basically, mal-gorithms to be bleak but amazing.
ON – engineered to take us to dark and extreme We used to believe the future would be
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WIL places, polarising and dividing us – could better. We could easily believe that again. If,
RT we not engineer pal-gorithms, which instead with a tweak, our galloping, remorselessly
BE
RO take us to increasingly more reasonable and positive technology made it so. n
The Times Magazine 5
What I’ve learnt Jo Whiley
Presenter Jo Whiley, 56, grew up in
Northamptonshire. Over a 30-year ‘I was mortified
career, she has hosted Top of the
Pops and had a BBC Radio 1 show. being pulled on
She now presents a weeknight Radio 2
show. During the pandemic she stage and made
campaigned on behalf of disabled
people after her younger sister, to dance at
Frances, was hospitalised with Covid.
This month she will front the BBC’s Glastonbury’
coverage of Glastonbury Festival.
She has four children and lives in
Northamptonshire with her husband.
Being trolled really knocked my
confidence. It took me by surprise
when I was going through it with
Drivetime and made me quite
wobbly. I was trying to ignore it,
but it was quite a loud noise and
I lost a little bit of myself at that
time. It’s a painful but good thing
to go through. I developed a
really thick skin. I was worrying
about the effect my misery and
bad experience was having on my
family, but they were fantastic.
If I was ever feeling sorry for
myself, they would give me a big,
hard talking-to. I feel sorry for
trolls more than anything else.
It was mortifying being pulled
on stage at Glastonbury. I didn’t
know it was happening until
I was there at the front of the
Pyramid Stage, having Nile
Rodgers tell me to dance. It was
absolutely horrific because I can’t
dance at all.
INTERVIEW Georgina Roberts PORTRAIT Leigh Kelly
My sister being taken to hospital
was my worst nightmare. I felt
powerless. We had this one curve. It feels weird when you’re when you start doing triathlons. I’m not going to stress about
horrendous long night where used to a big household of noise. You suddenly think that you getting older. I’m really grateful
we were discussing end of life Life was hard when I was a kid, can’t breathe. It’s the weirdest that I am, because my friends are
and taking her home to die. We because my sister had very feeling in the world. I’d never not. When I lost two friends, it
didn’t think she would survive. challenging behaviour. She’s on experienced anything like it. taught me to live every second.
I cried myself to sleep. It was the autistic spectrum. It was very When we lost power on air, Bono That’s been the hardest thing I’ve
only by some miracle that dramatic. She would just scream said, “Drink, anybody?” We went ever experienced. It gave me a
Frances’s body fought Covid. all night long. We’d have to lock to U2’s studios in Dublin to do whole new perspective on the
She came through it and survived. her in the room and she would a show. U2 fans from all around ageing process. There’s no point
I had to take a Valium after we be trying to escape, or you slept the world were tuning in. We waiting to enjoy life a couple
dropped India off at university. in the bed with her. We had were on air for about 30 seconds of years down the line, because
When you’ve got four young this rota for telling her bedtime before we lost power. It was like, it can be over extremely quickly
kids, you’re constantly chasing stories throughout the night. “We’re not broadcasting, guys.” and take you by surprise. I’m
your tail. When they get older It means none of us needs very The engineers were freaking out. grateful to be alive. My friends
and move away, your life changes much sleep. No one could work out what it don’t have that privilege.
and you have to change. There’s I had a massive panic attack in was. Bono stood up and went, They don’t have that luck. n
BC that hideous emptiness of your the water when I did a triathlon. “Well, there’s only one thing for
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The Times Magazine 7
SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
Pre-chopped garlic,
frozen vegetables
– how to cook
when your hands
don’t work (sliced
fingers optional)
I
had one of those out of the blue, I had forgotten the sweet relief of exchanging Batch-cook and freeze, he says. One big
heart-lifting, random discussions experiences with others in exactly the same effort earns you lots of restful evenings. Frozen
the other day, the kind that wouldn’t boat. No one else can really understand. pastry if you want to impress. He recommends
make sense to many people. Brief My new chef friend has much the same level the Very Lazy brand of chopped garlic, ginger
and deep, a hippy once told me, of injury and a broadly similar level of ability and red chilli. He makes Chinese food.
that’s how the best conversations as me. This, as always, creates an unspoken Modestly, he makes it sound easy, but I can see
go. “Lifting heavy stuff,” I said. “That’s bond: the fellowship of the leg bag; the same that for his hands, as for mine, all these things
what does for me.” “Nah,” said my hands that refuse to obey you; the torsos are a mighty struggle. Night after night, people
companion. “Chopping. That’s the that wobble like unset jelly; the shared black like us cook – small but amazing feats of
worst thing.” humour of the bust cervical spine. He, like balance and persistence, entirely uncelebrated.
“Does your cooker go up and down?” me, has the same determination to maximise But if we keep doing it, our hands get
I asked, possibly sounding a little awestruck. whatever function he has been left with. stronger, our grip more dependable. We joked
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s brilliant. Makes all the There’s no doubt that dodgy hands cause about doing a tetraplegic cookbook, or the
difference. My sink does too.” I whimpered gruesome frustrations with cooking, things ultimate book of shortcuts. His cooking, my
with kitchen envy and wished I had a week learnt only by experience. The classic pratfall writing. Sliced fingertips the optional ingredient.
to sit and pick his brains. is preparing a one-dish supper and putting it, I made an ambitious meal for friends not
Thing is, my new mate isn’t only a proper, heavy but manageable, into the oven – not long ago, both meat and vegetarian dishes.
haute cuisine-trained chef with years of anticipating that it will be impossible, let alone I went completely bonkers with the veggie
experience; he also quite recently became dangerous, to grip and lift when it is hot. – an approximation of a French peasant recipe
a tetraplegic, stuck in a wheelchair. He Caught out by that, alone in the house, I’ve for potato pie my sister taught me 40 years
can therefore impart more seriously useful had no choice but to let meals be cremated. ago. Frozen pastry, laborious thin potato
knowledge about how to be a disabled cook After all the effort, it’s a heartbreaker. You slicing, cream, seasoning. And it looked rough
than anyone I’ve met. learn. Just as you learn not to gamble with any as hell, but it tasted pretty good.
One of the fun things in recent months, dish too hot and heavy after one has slipped Tony Turnbull, the wonderful Times food
going back to hospital to do the research trial, from your hands and slid down the front editor, a man who knows his onions, advised
was encountering fellow crocks again. You of the oven in an explosion of sticky, scalding recently that when it comes to cooking, time is
forget, you know. After enough years post- food, splashing the toes of your boots. your greatest asset. I beg to differ, Tony. Time
disaster, time spent shoring up your own fragile My friend has the pragmatism of a when you’re disabled is a given – preparing a
existence, you tend to forget about other professional. Don’t dick around trying to chop meal takes for ever. When it comes to cooking,
people struggling along parallel to you. stuff. You’ll just cut slices off your numb little working hands are what make the difference. n
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O living. I haven’t seen my old friends from impossible possible. Ignore the food snobs who Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her
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The Times Magazine 9
Opposite: Dan Walker, 45.
This image: dancing the Argentine
tango with Nadiya Bychkova
on last year’s Strictly
