The Rake June 2016 - Issue 46

IT WAS AN INTERESTING EMAIL TO RECEIVE. Forwarded to me by my editor, Tom Chamberlin, it read: “I am partnered at a restaurant in Tribeca, New York, called Bâtard. I happened to notice Mr. Wei Koh has an upcoming booking. Would you be able to tell me, would that be your Founder and Editorial Director at The Rake? The greatest men’s magazine in the history of the world? If so, please convey my excitement as I look forward to welcoming him at Bâtard.” The resulting meal was one of the best I’ve had in recent memory, characterised by dishes whose pared-back simplicity and deliciousness was belied by what was clearly a chef (Markus Glocker) of extraordinary technical prowess working at the apogee of his ability. But the real revelation that…

BY THE TIME THIS ISSUE OF THE RAKE IS PRINTED and gracing newsstands throughout Europe, the island nation from whence it was made — Britain, that is, not Singapore — will be on the brink of choosing whether to commit itself to the E.U. or go it alone (for better or worse). In a personal gesture of goodwill and care for my mainland friends — and speaking of ‘for better or worse’ — I will be getting married in France this month. Not, may I add, because I believe I have some sort of notoriety that might persuade my fellow subjects in the U.K. that we must maintain relationships instead of breaking them — truthfully, I am undecided. The wedding is a year and a bit of very testing planning…

SIMON EMMETT London-born Simon Emmett is renowned for his celebrity portraits, beauty imagery and editorials. Recently he has also focused on his personal and film projects. Currently in production is a documentary about the British band The Darkness, in collaboration with Spring69, following the ups and downs of the rockers’ return to the charts. His previous documentary, Underhill, is set around the move of Barnet F.C. from their spiritual home stadium, and has brought a tear to the eyes of diehard fans and non-supporters alike. Simon makes a return to The Rake by photographing not only this issue’s cover star, Daniel Brühl, but also the beautiful game’s most rakish, Eric Cantona (page 106). MING LIU Ming Liu regularly contributes to the Financial Times, How To Spend It magazine and The New York Times,…

It started, as so many of the best things do, with a Ford Thunderbird. The purple car rose up out of the floor at Wembley Arena and circled the in-the-round stage to a martial drumbeat. Then the door flew open and Prince stepped out, dressed for a harlequinade in a white polka-dot suit with absurdly oversized buttons. Upstage, Cat, the formidably toned rapper and Prince’s latest protégé, and Sheila E, his powerhouse drummer, were marching in lockstep, dressed for a burlesque rodeo in sports bras and Stetsons; Prince joined them for a frenetic routine that seemed to sprint through most of the major Kama Sutra positions in around two minutes. Finally, he approached the microphone, and, pausing only for a trademark lascivious lip-lick, drawled the opening lines of Erotic City: All…

When the trappings of the Côte d’Azur — petrol fumes, Cristal, coffee for €10, and people in high heels at the swimming pool — irk you enough to pack it in and bid an emphatic sayonara to the new denizens, the option of where to go to next is not exactly obvious. Sure, you enjoyed the few hours it took to fly from wherever it was you came from, you like the light Mediterranean food, the freezing cold rosé from Château d’Esclans, and the parched earth that adds to the ambience of the sandstone and terracotta architecture. Do what Michael Corleone did and go to Sicily. The island has everything you need to experience the ‘Med’ at its best. Follow in the footsteps of many conquering families, the Hohenstaufens, the…

The actor Oliver Reed was a gentleman bruiser, a Rabelaisian belly under a field-marshal accent. Ted Hughes could have invented him: the ferocious clowncrow, or the ruptured peacock with the bomblit eyes, rainbowed, aboriginal, acrid, brassy, genital, ejected, pre-devastated. Of the vintage hellraisers he was the lead Englishman, and, beside the Celtic quartet of Burton, Harris, Hopkins and O’Toole, the least fulfilled. He became a victim of his own humour, soulful, free of false quantities, a Falstaffian surface cooled by inner ironies. At the very least, he was the best James Bond we never had. Born in Wimbledon in 1938, Reed went to 13 different schools where his dyslexia was dismissed as poor concentration, so he focused on his physical development (one sports day he went home with 11 cups, having…