The Times Magazine - UK (2021-12-11)

The Times Magazine 63

indeed rekindled her love affair with actor
Ben Affleck came via a razzley-dazzley set
of Instagram images captured on the deck
of a superyacht (the spiritual home of this
coupling through the ages), in celebration of
Lopez’s 52nd birthday. How the world rejoiced!
This reunion has it all: rebirth and redemption
(Lopez and Affleck originally dated in the early
Noughties, but called off their engagement for
reasons of both of them being too famous),
nostalgia for a simpler time (2002), and
snogging on superyachts. Who knows if it’ll
last? Who cares? This was the first bit of
celebrity gossip that had the ability to truly
stir us since Covid, give or take Pete Davidson
and Daphne Bridgerton. That was good.

Au G u sT

Tom Daley
Turns out sometimes all any of us need to
feel OK is Tom Daley knitting by the side of
an Olympic pool.
Teddy from Love Island
Whose equanimity in the face of girlfriend
Faye’s rages, born of an instinctual grasp
of the vulnerabilities inspiring them, was an
emotionally evolved joy to behold.
Paris Hilton
Let there be no end to the variety and breadth
and magnitude of this one socialite heiress,
her reinventions and her comebacks! This
latest came in the form of Netflix cookery
show Cooking With Paris (after which she
got married).
Armond from The White Lotus
Before Ted Lasso (see September) came this
strutting argument for the sexual potency
of the bigger moustache. Dashing, tortured,
funny, self-destructive, single-handedly
responsible for the Great Hawaiian Shirt
Revival of late summer ’21.

sEPTEMBER

Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s (possibly fictional)

friend’s testicles

Somehow became ground zero on a Covid

vaccination row that ended up inspiring a live,

at-podium rebuttal from Chris Whitty, a voice

note from singer Minaj to Boris Johnson (in

which the 38-year-old claimed to have gone

to school with Margaret Thatcher), and

culminated in a Twitter spat between Minaj

and Laura Kuenssberg (who else?).

Ted Lasso

Stormed the Emmys, thus alerting those of us

not yet aware that sometimes the only other

thing any of us need to feel OK is a fictional

American football coach transplanted to the

UK to transform the fortunes of a failing

Premier League football side, mainly via the

medium of unbridled optimism and core

decency (aided by a moustache).

Emma Raducanu

Something to do with tennis? And joyfulness

and youth and the potent scent of future

greatness and chocolate?

Abba

And after all: they came back.

OCTOBER

William Shatner

Went to space, returned to Earth, wept.

HoYeon Jung

Squid Game became the most watched show

Netflix had ever released this month, thanks

in no small part to its mesmerising lead, who

managed to combine a ruthless streak, intense

vulnerability, the momentum of tragedy, and a

winning way with a regulation teal tracksuit.

Cousin Greg

Providing the strange and entirely necessary

relief of bumbling awkwardness to the

otherwise unrelentingly slick, acerbic banter

of Succession season three.

nOVEMBER

Peppa Pig

Unwittingly found herself, and her World, at

the heart of an epic political fandango, as a

byword for our prime minister’s suggested

incompetence, and referenced in the handle of

new leaky Westminster antagonist “the chatty

pig”, who in briefing the BBC called Johnson

“shambolic”, on the subject of which...

Liam Booth-Smith

Top aide to Rishi Sunak, named as a possible

chatty pig (although, to be fair, so is Allegra

Stratton – both deny it).

Rose and Giovanni

Strictly Come Dancing’s first deaf contestant,

Rose Ayling-Ellis, and professional dance

partner Giovanni Pernice danced on through

a full ten seconds of silence, and there was

not a dry eye in the country.

Paulina Porizkova

The 56-year-old supermodel launched a

one-woman campaign against ageism via the

medium of Instagram, a nude selfie, and an

extraordinary response to some bloke who’d

told her, at her age, she should “be bathing in

the love of her grandkids”, not “parading

around half-naked”.

Paul Rudd

People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, 2021.

(We could have told them that.)

Amol Rajan

Stirring up the hornet’s nest in slimline

shirt and diamond ear stud in The Princes

and the Press.

Jonathan Van-Tam

Omicron emerged, JVT attacked it with

football analogies that some considered

“laboured”, yet left others asking if he’d

“jumped the shark”. They’re missing the point,

of course. JVT’s analogy game borrows heavily

on the dad joke tradition: repetition, silliness

and a wantonly strained conceit are precisely

why they work. Ergo: pin-up!

DECEMBER

Cher

Revealed as May in the 2022 Pirelli calendar.

(Jennifer Hudson’s July, Iggy Pop’s August and

a guitar is December – how modern.)

Henry Cavill

Season 2 of The Witcher returns to Netflix, and

the man with the second sexiest disapproving

grunt on TV after Roy Kent of Ted Lasso – the

Witcher, played by Cavill – promises to perk

up festivities in the way only monosyllabic

grumpbag men can. (See also The Grinch.)

George Clooney

For: “Turning 60 is a bummer. But it’s that

or dead.” n

FEBRUARY: Jackie Weaver

MARCH: Ted Hastings

DECEMBER:

George Clooney

NOVEMBER: Amol Rajan