IN its early days the UK edition of GQ Magazine had an outstandingly successful editor called Michael VerMeulen. He was from Chicago, where he had been a close associate of the playwright David Mamet – so, by no means the typical London fashion editor. He was also pretty much the exact opposite of me in every way – thick-set, confrontational, and completely at home in the sexy, spiteful, intrigue-rich world of glossy magazine publishing. Anyway, having nothing better to do I phoned him out of the blue and pitched a couple of feature ideas which he turned down flat. But he added “Come on over, we’ll have a drink and see if we can make sense of you”.
Category Archives: GQ
Kubrick’s World
THIS profile of film director Stanley Kubrick was written for GQ magazine, and then filed away in editor Michael VerMeulen’s ‘maybe’ drawer. “I like it,” he said, “but …”.
Sure, I Remember Killing My Brother
MY BROTHER? Sure, I remember killing my brother. Don’t you remember killing yours? I killed mine after school on Saturday afternoon. I remember how I did it. It was easy. It’s what brotherly love is all about. And he was younger, so he deserved it.
In The Pink
A GQ story from the 1990s …
IT IS EASY to forget the river, in London. So when I was ushered (at an early hour) into the riverside office of the Financial Times – to discuss with the editor a profile of the great financial newspaper – I was startled suddenly to see the Thames running so close and so fast, almost lapping the FT‘s panoramic windows beneath Southwark Bridge.