Small talk: ‘One is not amused’

04 Oct 2019 | Updated on: 27 Sep 2022 |By Anna Prendergast

This week's top talking points, from BFI Film Festival to an uncanny portrayal of Her Majesty

1. The MVPs

Two British athletes have smashed records and taken home gold at the World Athletic Championships in Doha this week. Kent’s 23-year-old Dina Asher-Smith completed the 200m sprint in a British record of 21.88 seconds, while Liverpudlian Katarina Johnson-Thompson, at 26, took home the top prize for her heptathlon results on Thursday. More importantly, KJT took part in Celebrity Bake Off in March, and got Prue Leith to compliment her ‘knicker section’. The screenshot is currently KJT’s Twitter banner.

2. The monarch

God Save The Queen brings 33 internationally acclaimed artists to Marylebone, where an exhibition at Fiat’s Motor Village shows Her Majesty in a new light. Side by side with artists such as Terry O’Neill and Rankin, it’s Alison Jackson’s witty faux-tographs that reveal Liz having tea with Trump and peering in the window of a betting shop. She’s the artist behind Princess Di giving the camera the middle finger and Marilyn Monroe appearing to be embraced by JFK (and of the two women shopping in Paris). This month marks the last chance to see the works all in one place – the exhibition closes on November 1.

motorvillageuk.com; 105 Wigmore Street, W1U 1QY

3. The movies

BFI’s London Film Festival kicked off this week: don’t miss Clara Amfo’s talk with Michael B Jordan, Robert De Niro discussing his latest collab with Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network and Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse. Trailers for Sam Mendes’ WW1 drama 1917 (‘the story of a messenger who has a message to carry’) and The Gentlemen, starring Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Grant and Henry Golding in Guy Ritchie’s trigger-happy comedy action, worth watching for Colin Pharell’s wordplay alone.

4. The gatecrasher

French comedian Marie Benoliel gatecrashed Chanel’s runway show in Paris, joining the professional models on the catwalk in a houndstooth two-piece on Monday. Even Anna Wintour could be seen cracking a smile at the scene, as Benoliel strutted nonchalantly around the Grand Palais. Wearing vintage Chanel, the security guards failed to pick her out of the crowd, so Gigi Hadid stepped in to escort Benoliel, who goes by the moniker Marie S’Infiltre, away.

5. The gift

Professional pool player Earl Strickland once said that ‘pool is a beautiful game for ugly people’. He’s probably right, and it just got a whole lot more beautiful. Tiffany’s first dedicated men’s collection of jewellery and accessories dropped this week, with a pool set that the whole Luxury London office swiftly added to their Christmas list: blonde-wood rack, 15 Tiffany-blue stripes and solids, plus a polished white cue ball.

tiffany.com

6. The hangout

Oursin is the Parisian restaurant opened by Simon Porte Jacquemus and Caviar Kaspia in the 8th arrondissement in late September. The French designer drew on his grandmother’s cooking for the Mediterranean menu of seafood and Sicilian salsa. The space, on the second floor of the Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysées, is filled with charming handmade ceramics, white tablecloths and a canopy of vines. galerieslafayette.com

7. The book

Blondie frontwoman and punk queen Debbie Harry has released her memoir, Face It, filled with her hard-edged humour, anecdotes about David Bowie’s dick, drugs and touring the world. Notoriously private, Harry doesn’t pretend to offer any personal epiphanies, and she doesn’t bow to the pressure to examine her experiences as a sex symbol (she was a Playboy Bunny in the late sixties). But it’s still a brilliant insight into the bohemian culture of the romanticised era ruled by rock and roll. Pick up Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey, released last month, for a more reflective memoir of Harry’s cultural contemporary. waterstones.com

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