British GQ March 2016

David Beckham is not exactly your typical ex-footballer. Entrepreneur, fashion icon and sporting statesman, he has created a role for himself that was previously vacant. In fact it didn’t really exist at all. This month we celebrate his involvement with Unicef and the Positive View Foundation in David Beckham: The Man, an exhibition that opens this month in London at Phillips, Berkeley Square, followed by a gala auction. It’s a fundraising effort for 7: The David Beckham Unicef Fund, which seeks to save and change children’s lives around the world, and Positive View, a charity that aims to transform the lives of young people from difficult backgrounds by interesting them in photography. Positive View’s chief executive, Andrew Page, alighted upon the Beckham idea at three in the morning one day in…

Katie GRAND & Sølve SUNDSBØ GQ’s Contributing Women’s Editor Katie Grand created a portfolio of her favourite models, including Cara Delevingne and Adriana Lima. “My intention was to represent them as strong women,” says Grand. “These icons control their own subjectivity, ensuring women as well as men enjoy looking at them.” The women were shot by Norwegian-born photographer Sølve Sundsbø, who says, “Not only are these some of the sexiest women, but also some of the most fun women Katie knows.” Bryan ADAMS Bryan Adams, first known for his music, is also a celebrated photographer, including his moving 2014 exhibition of images of wounded British soldiers. Adams shot GQ’s December story on Star Wars actor John Boyega and this month photographed our “Bright Young Things” feature on the UK’s rising stars of stage…

The growing certainty that the mid-air destruction of a Metrojet airliner flying from Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg was caused by a bomb placed in the baggage hold led to predictable calls from politicians for tighter airport security across the world. “What we have got to do is ensure that airport security everywhere is at the level of the best,” said foreign secretary Philip Hammond. “That may mean additional costs; it may mean additional delays at airports as people check in.” The deaths of 224 people aboard the Airbus A321 is a tragedy. But if passengers groan at ever more intrusive security screening, they are right. Airliners are exceedingly tempting targets for jihadist terrorists, particularly those wanting to hurt the “far enemy” in the West. Inspired by its success on 9/11,…

ANIMAL Collective’s new album, Painting With, takes familiar pop structures and then distorts them like warm clay into something thrillingly original. Fitting, then, that they recorded the album at EastWest Studios, Hollywood, the former base of The Beach Boys. “We were in Studio Three, where they did Pet Sounds and part of ‘Good Vibrations’,” says sample wizard Brian “Geologist” Weitz. “Being in that room, I don't know how they did it. The idea that they crammed all those people in there to record ‘God Only Knows’ is crazy.” Perhaps some of its Brian Wilson magic rubbed off. “One of the first people we played it to said he was trying to figure out if these are really simple songs made to sound complicated, or the other way around,” says Weitz with…

David Cameron hosted celebrity hairstylist John Frieda and his glamorous wife, Avery, for dinner at Downing Street recently. Curiously, Frieda is the first Tory donor to be invited to dine at Number Ten for years. Perhaps Dave is about to revamp his image... How paranoid is Jeremy Corbyn about a coup? Orchestrated emails have been sent out to the MPs who nominated him last year, asking for their support should he face a leadership challenge. He will need all the help he can get if a contender emerges. The Tory wives’ club traditionally offered a chance for MPs’ other halves to gossip about their husbands. Times have changed. Female Conservative MPs recently organised a bonding session for their spouses. Its name? The Denis Thatcher Memorial Dinner. Anybody who is anybody was at the…

The scene: Ali’s mother’s house, March 1988. Miller has just met the boxer for the first time. “I excused myself to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. A pair of Ali’s huge, shiny black, businessman’s dress shoes was on the floor beside the toilet. The toe of one had been crushed, the other was lying on its side. When I unlocked the door to leave, it wouldn’t budge. I couldn’t even turn the handle. I tentatively knocked. There was laughter from the other room. I distinctly heard Mrs Clay and [Ali’s brother] Rahaman murmuring. I yanked fairly hard on the door a few times. Nothing. Just when I thought I was stuck there for the millennium, the door easily opened. I caught a glimpse of Ali bounding into a…