British GQ June 2021

There are two types of people, the old saying goes: those who like Van Morrison and those who have met him. Such is Van The Man’s reputation that journalists are genuinely scared of him. In fact, since Lou Reed slipped off this mortal coil, Morrison has become the rock star who most evokes fear in his inquisitors. “As an artist he’s clearly a genius,” says a press officer who worked with Morrison in the 1980s. “As a man he’s impossible. He used to drop into the record company office, usually to harangue somebody about some imagined slight, and people would literally hide in the cupboards so as not to have to confront him. It was never a case of, ‘Wow, it’s Van Morrison.’ People were actually terrified of him.” One story that…

Aniefiok Ekpoudom For our cover story, Aniefiok Ekpoudom profiled rapper and singer Burna Boy as the Afropop superstar celebrated his Best Global Music Album Grammy success in his hometown of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. “In Burna Boy I see a man whose story and music means so much to so many,” says Ekpoudom. “He seems to be shouldering the weight of expectation well.” Alan Aboud At 75, Van Morrison remains one of Ireland’s most prolific musicians. As the singer prepares to release a new album, designer and long-time fan Alan Aboud wrote about the continuing mystique. “Some people believe there are two sides to his enigma: the genius or the fractious performer,” says Aboud. “I disagree; Morrison’s music and performances are akin to a religious experience.” Gina Martin For this issue’s special report into violence against…

10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021 Prince Philip, Duke Of Edinburgh, was one of our greatest national treasures. His death is an immense loss to the country and the Commonwealth. Since his wedding to Queen Elizabeth II on 20 November 1947, he was always two steps behind her on public occasions, as her closest advisor and her rock. The longest-serving consort to the monarch in British history, he was an ever-present part of our national life. With arguably more royal blood than the Queen herself – his father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, his mother Princess Alice of Battenberg – Prince Philip nonetheless had a chaotic early life as the result of his parents’ separation and was only to find true stability aged 18 when he joined the Britannia…

If Bojo’s post-Covid road map is to be believed, over the next month or so we’re going to be making the final push back towards normal life. Indeed, if everything’s gone fully to plan, gyms, golf courses and pub gardens will already be open and, with any luck, society’s full unleashing is just around the corner. And while that means there’s plenty to get excited about this summer, it also means we need to start thinking long and hard about the clothes we’re going to be wearing when we’re back out in the world. For the past year it’s been perfectly acceptable to wear the same pair of sweatpants 24 hours per day, seven days a week, but now we have to start seriously considering the impact our sartorial decisions…

If Fuller Moto’s “2029 Majestic” motorcycle looks more like the sci-fi craft of the Tron franchise than the classic American choppers Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda rode in Easy Rider, well, that’s deliberate. But the futuristic bike has its roots in the past. The 2029 Majestic is an electric motorcycle concept designed and built in Fuller’s workshop in Atlanta, Georgia, using 3-D-printed titanium parts and drawing inspiration from a French motorcycle called the 1929 Majestic, which was itself first produced in its namesake year. When that bike came out, it represented the sleek, brave new world of art deco design; a century later, the 2029 Majestic offers a similar blueprint for the future. It’s also one of the hundreds of gaze-capturing models featured in The Motorcycle: Desire, Art, Design, Phaidon’s new…

Fragrance is an incredibly personal thing. What might be redolent of summer flings and long, hot holidays worn by one person has the potential to smell of, well, a nasty ex on another. It’s a point that’s also relevant to the way one chooses to apply one’s scent. For some, a biceps spritz is the only way to disseminate a fragrance throughout the day; others would rather smell it wafting through their environment than on their person. Hence the wide array of weird and wonderful new ways the world’s most important manufacturers have developed to spritz, spray, diffuse and disseminate in 2021. In short? Anything goes, so long as it doesn’t come from a boring glass bottle. 1. In your hair Eleventh Hour Hair Perfume by Byredo, £52 for 75ml. byredo.com Byredo’s range…