Just over a month ago I woke with great excitement on the long awaited day of my first trip overseas for 19 months — the longest period I have ever been grounded. I normally arrive 46 minutes before take-off. Such is my wife Katrina’s frustration at my travel habits, that often she makes her own way to the airport and meets me on the flight! But this time, such was the novelty of flying that I arrived early for our long-awaited holiday in Ibiza.
My idea of holidays are as a time to chill and sleep, so Ibiza’s reputation as a party island had kept me away in recent years. But my great friend of 30 years, the ever youthful Ian Livingstone, texted me to recommed his fabulous minimalist all-white décor ME Ibiza Hotel on the east coast. Ian was absolutely right to assure me it was super chilled and perfect in every way.
Wherever I am, I always head for Nobu if there is one. So once we knew there was one in Ibiza Bay we had to go — multiple times. Our taxi dropped us at the most spectacular hotel entrance with an enormous cleverly-designed, light filled atrium that sweeps your gaze through to the Mediterranean.
Nobu Iza has four restaurants. One night Richard Livingstone, Ian’s charming brother, hosted us in the acclaimed Spanish chef Dani García’s Bibo restaurant. The street food dishes were mouth-watering. At dinner that night I was thrilled to meet acclaimed Qatari designer Noor Al Fardan, whose Noudar jewels are exquisite, timeless and steeped in history. With us was also my old friend Stephen Morris who chose an Ibiza farm to shelter in during the pandemic A more fascinating man you will be hard pushed to meet. Stephen has funded over one hundred start-ups and early-stage ventures, and is now focusing on the blockchain and cryptocurrency space.
As the autumn draws in, book lovers will delight in Natalie Livingstone’s award winning Cliveden Literary Festival which returns next month. Natalie herself is an acclaimed author, and my must read this winter will be her new book The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty, which Iwill be published in Novermber and I hear is a compelling read.
Three years ago at the inaugural Cliveden dinner I was seated next to the retired Chief (‘C’) of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. I have been lucky that such unexpected and often slightly surreal chance meetings have been a pattern of my life. That evening I introduced this spy master to actress Ruth Wilson whose grandfather was said to have been a spy working at MI6 during the second world.
I am already salivating about this year’s Cliveden festival line-up which includes some of the greatest living authors.
I am particularly looking forward to hearing from the multiple award-winning authors Andrew Roberts, Simon Sebag Montefiore, David Baddiel and ex-CIA Director General David Petraeus.
The opening mega party of the Autumn season was the bash for the GQ Men of the Year Awards, celebrating those who have enriched (and this year, saved) our lives. The 2021 winners included vaccine heroes Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert and Dr Catherine Green. In an academic lab in Oxford in early 2020, they set about developing a life-saving vaccine to Covid-19. By November, they had pulled it off.
This year I sat with Gary Lineker, and Line of Duty stars Vicky McClure (DCI Kate Fleming) and Adrian Dunbar (Superintendent Ted Hastings), winner of the GQ Award for TV Actor of the Year.
At the after-party YouTuber and rapper KSI marched around with his entourage while recording artist Pixie Lott’s star power drew a flock of people into her orbit.
As a third generation Jewish immigrant, I feel particular affinity to those suffering in the current Afghanistan crisis which has deeply upset me.
For that reason my charity shout out this month is World Jewish Relief which has launched an emergency appeal to help the millions of Afghans forced to flee.
They urgently need humanitarian assistance having lost their families, livelihoods, homes — having fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Please go to www.worldjewishrelief.org and donate to their Afghan Refugee Crisis Appeal.
