British GQ July 2019

Oh, my word, how the digital dominoes are falling. In the past six months there has been a litany of announcements that reflect so badly on the world of digital media. Big commercial online news providers continue to shed staff in huge numbers as they find it difficult to acclimatise to the harsh realities of news gathering. BuzzFeed laid off 15 per cent of its staff, a loss of 220 jobs (a lot of which were based in its New York newsroom); Vice cut more than ten per cent of its workforce (250 people); while Verizon, which owns the Huffington Post and Yahoo, cut 800 workers in its media division. As the Guardian reported at the time, many of these layoffs played out in real time on Twitter as journalists…

Behind the scenes with Phoebe Waller-Bridge Join this month’s cover star with an exclusive backstage pass to our shoot in New York. Catch up on GQ Heroes Last month saw our grand inaugural summit descend on Soho Farmhouse for three days. See all the talks and panels online. #GQHeroes The shades you need to be wearing Finally, summer is here. Treat yourself to one of these sharp new pairs of sunnies… London Fashion Week Men’s on Instagram Stories Let GQ Style & Grooming Director Teo van den Broeke guide you through all the shows and trends. The best music festivals of 2019 Whether you’re going to Glastonbury or further afield, find our lowdown on all the main events.…

Tina FEY Actress, writer and comedian Tina Fey is a self-professed admirer of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and interviewed the creator of Fleabag and Killing Eve for this month’s cover story. Fey “knows Phoebe’s work inside out” and the two sat down together to discuss Waller-Bridge’s early career, where she finds the inspiration for her writing and how improv compares to female orgasms. Matt KELLY For GQ.co.uk this month, regular contributor and editor of the New European Matt Kelly writes about the current orthodoxy of protesting on the streets against President Trump. “Protestors don’t understand the banality of ridiculing a ridiculous man. There’s only one way to humiliate Trump – by depriving him of the attention he craves,” notes Kelly. Tony COOK Stylist Tony Cook pulled together the big-name looks of Spring/Summer 2019 for this issue’s wide-ranging…

If you want to know how bad my podcast addiction has become – how weird, how dependent, how frankly unhealthy – then you need to look no further than my daily routine. Every morning when I set off to cycle to work, I will first put in my earphones (set to “pass-through” so I can hear the traffic, Mum), play the latest episode of the New York Times podcast The Daily, hosted by Michael Barbaro, and catch up on the intricacies of US college bribery scandals or the story of a Navy Seal who went rogue as I ride. I listen to it every day and take great pleasure from a host who has as many ways of saying “Huh?” as Eskimos have words for snow. This is not the issue. You’re…

In April, Bernie Sanders, one of the frontrunners for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, made a surprising accusation. He argued that the Center For American Progress, a think-tank with links to Hillary Clinton, had had the gall to make “personal attacks” against him. As he detailed in a letter to the members of its board: “Last week, you published an article on ThinkProgress criticising me for my appearance and for the income I earned from writing a book. Then, a day later, you published a video that dishonestly attacked me for hypocrisy in my effort to address income inequality in America – a video that was excitedly discussed on many conservative websites.” This was unacceptable, he said, because “the Democratic primary must be a campaign of ideas, not of bad…

The room I am in is very white and empty, save for two rattan cushions on the floor, a carafe of water with two glasses and an installation above my head that swathes the room in orange, green and banana-yellow light. It looks like a purgatorial waiting room, where you sit while a celestial administrator weighs your life. “I feel like I’m in the afterlife,” I remark to the woman sitting cross-legged opposite me. “Everyone says that,” she replies, matter-of-factly. The death-like hush of the space is slightly spoiled by the fact that not three feet from where we’re sitting is London’s bustling Brick Lane. It’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m at the world’s first Wavepaths Space. Wavepaths is the brainchild of neuroscientist and psychedelic researcher Mendel Kaelen. Based at Imperial College…