Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Editor of The Tatler, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker, now launching Talk Magazine.
On the island
Eight records
The first record that I've chosen reminds me of a really great night in uh the summer of'ninety nine. It was the launch of Talk magazine, and very few people give parties at Liberty Island. It's rather hard to get it for a party.
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
I wanted to choose this uh song from Help because The Beatles were my idols, like a lot of baby boomers, and Hey You Gotta Hide Your Love Away was one of the more kind of uh John Lennon favorites and uh my father took me to the set of help when I was ten.
And this record, Stormy Weather, by Jack Hilton, is the music that I played over and over and over again in my second year at Oxford when I was trying to decide who I was more in love with, Simon or Stephen.
Enigma Variations, Op. 36: VII. Troyte
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle
I've chosen this Elgar because this reminds me of Harry. He's always action Harry. He's the most sort of activist person I've ever met in my life. And whenever I've come home from being away or being out and this music is playing, I know that Harry's in his study madly creating at his computer, writing, writing speeches, articles.
Uh this is Tina Turner singing I Can't Stand the Rain. I feel that Tina Turner very much to me represents the the glitz of the eighties, the era of the power suit, you know. That was the era that I was editor in chief of Vanity Fair in New York.
The Creation: Adam and Eve Duet
The next uh choice is Haydn the Creation, and I've chosen this because it reminds me of a wonderful evening when I was editing The New Yorker, when I came back to England to help raise money for the Bodleian Library with the magazine, and there was a concert at the Sheldonian where this was played.
Gloria in D major, RV 589: I. Gloria in excelsis Deo
Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti
This is a Vivaldi that always reminds me of Christmas in our house in Long Island with the children.
Chan ChanFavourite
And so this music by the Buena Vista Social Club, it's the music that I play when I'm in that kind of dreaming, kind of finally free in my own head place. It's very special to me for that reason.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:32You've certainly sailed, Tina, and continue to sail in some very choppy waters. Has it become a kind of natural habitat for you?
Well, I've always loved new challenges and I've always loved controversy really. I mean I enjoy biting off new projects that are the cause, I suppose, of a certain amount of difficulty along the way. But I've always made a got lot of friends. I've loved the work. I love the the journalism in a sense. And I think you have to develop a pretty thick skin at the same time.
Presenter asks
5:59For someone who's really fundamentally quite reserved, Tina, you rather like throwing parties, don't you?
I love the theatricality of putting together a big event. I've always liked that.
Presenter asks
9:20How many times were you expelled [from school]?
I was expelled a couple of times and sort of suspended once. … I focused entirely my kind of manic mutinous energies on my school.
The keepsakes
The book
George Eliot
I love the sort of texture and the worlds and the wisdom of Elliot, and I think she's eternally modern. And I also think that the bustling life that she creates is something I'm going to miss on that island. So I can dive into her many worlds and live there for a time.
The luxury
'Cause it's going to remind me of my time in New York. Very, very colourful roller coaster.
Presenter asks
How did your parents react to all of this [expulsion]?
My parents were incredibly supportive throughout. Their whole attitude was How could you have failed with this interesting child?
Presenter asks
14:02How did it happen [that you met Harry Evans]?
Harry had read my pieces in the New Statesman, and he wanted me to write for what was then the look pages, which is the sort of the style section. … I think every journalist worth their salt wanted to be part of the Sunday Times. … And I wanted to be part of that whole incredible culture of that newspaper. So it was an incredibly thrilling phone call when he asked if I would come in and meet with him.
Presenter asks
26:57How many people did you sack in the first year [at The New Yorker]?
Well, we had to lose seventy nine people. … I usually do [do it myself], because I think it's important to not shirk that if you're in charge and explain it properly and make people understand why.
“I think that's very good for a journalist because you end up needing to be very mobile. You have, as a journalist, you have to kind of be an imposter in every world and belonging to none.”
“I've always thought that great magazines could span the high and the low, and I think that the whole joy in a magazine is being able to do that.”
“I am the more American I get, the more British I feel.”