Latest news with #Vortex
Tom's Guide
2 days ago
- Tom's Guide
I found the perfect gaming chair for work and play — and it's easy on my wallet as it is on my back
Over the last couple of years, I've started working from home and in addition to gaming, my desk is seeing a lot more use. This means that my decade-plus office chair is really showing its age. What I needed was comfort when I was working but also after hours when playing games at my desk. The Axion ergonomic gaming chair from Eureka Ergonomic solved both of these problems. At $399, the Axion isn't Eureka's most expensive gaming chair (that goes to the Typhon), but it isn't the cheapest either (the Vortex). It features a segmented mesh backrest with a 4D headrest and adjustable lumbar support. The seat is a foam cushion with integrated springs that is quite thick but built for ergonomic positioning. I've been using Axion for a few weeks at my sit-stand desk with almost no complaints. At just under $400 it's far less than anything you can get from gaming chair giants like Secret Lab or Razer. If you work long hours or game all night, the Axion might just be the chair to keep you at your desk. My Eureka Axion review will help you decide if this is the best gaming chair for you along with whether or not it's comfortable enough to be one of the best office chairs too. Price $399 Color Blue or green accents Maximum height 50.79 inches Seat Width 20.67 inches Maximum load 300 lbs. Maximum recline 125° Weight 43.65 lbs Material Nylon, stainless steel Adjustment points 6 Warranty 2 year limited warranty (soft furniture), 3 years limited warranty (other parts) The Axion delivers when it comes to ergonomics and comfort for both gaming and work. The nylon mesh is breathable and the thick foam seat makes for a relaxing sit. Just about everything your body touches is adjustable from the headrest to the seat cushion. The lumbar support can move up or down depending on where you need it for your back. Some of those adjustments didn't work for me (more on that later) but for the most part I was able to set the chair where I needed it to be. I am a leaner, despite these kinds of chairs being designed to cut that down. Where I noticed the most comfort was in the lumbar support. Many chairs with lumbar support mechanisms at this price point, from what I've seen, aren't adjustable. Wherever it hits your back is where it rests. The ability to pull the support up or down makes a difference. I'm on the shorter side so sometimes it's harder for me to find lumber support that isn't in the middle of my back, when I want it toward the base of my spine. Speaking of comfort, the cushion is fairly thick with built-in springs. I never felt like I was sinking into the seat, but at the same time, it's not so unforgiving that it feels like you're sitting on a brick of foam. My current setup utilizes one of the best standing desks since I like to switch between standing and sitting during working hours. I would say I spend about half that time sitting and was happy to sit in the Axion for hours on end. When gaming, where I tend to lock in and stay seated the whole time, it was enjoyable to lean back into the chair between rounds of Valorant, especially compared to my older chair. The Axion ships in a decently sized box and I had to put the chair together. This is no real surprise, as most home office furniture requires user assembly unless it carries a premium price. Assembling the Axion is pretty straightforward and all of the parts were labeled or it was fairly obvious where they went with easy to follow instructions. It took about 15 minutes to build the chair with the longest part being putting the body of the chair onto the wheel base, but mostly because I ignorantly put the wheels on first instead of after. While the Axion is fairly comfortable with multiple points of adjustment, it isn't without a couple of flaws, mainly centered around some of the adjustment points With the caveat that my preference is to never lean back super far in my chair, the Axion features a recline option that can be locked in. On the Axion, the unlocked recline felt too loose, where I wanted some resistance as I leaned back. Honestly, every time I leaned back it felt like I was going to flip the chair, even though it never really happened. One time as I was playing with the recline locking bar, I somehow got it stuck in recline mode and could not get the chair back to upright for several minutes until it clicked out of it. When you lock the recline bar, there isn't much give, so it's either super loose or very restricted. My personal preference would be more resistance as you lean back and a little bit more give when you lock it in. This is a smaller one, but the armrest adjustment triggers to make them go up or down is not obvious. Normally, the adjustment button is on the sides of the armrest. On the Axion there are triggers hidden under the rests, so you wrap your hand around and then press the trigger to pull the arm up or down. Over time I'll probably get used to it but I still reach down rather than underneath the armrests. The lumbar support features a handle bar that you can reach back and simply raise up or down depending on where you want to position the support. It's pretty easy to reach from the left or right side of the chair. However, I found that the lumbar support didn't always catch as I was moving it to the desired spot. Once I got it to lock in, the support never strayed, but getting it to lock in was occasionally an annoyance. It's a minor complaint, but annoying when you're worried that it won't catch. Plus, I am concerned that over time this misuse might get worse as bits get rubbed down. For now, it holds. Despite being a gaming chair, the Eureka Ergonomic Axion would fit comfortably in any home office setup where you aren't afraid of slight pops of color. The multiple adjustment points and comfortable seat make the Axion a quality seat for long sessions of gaming or work. There are enough points of adjustment that it felt like I could fine tune the chair to my liking. This chair won't blow you away like the Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen or Mavix M9, but at half the cost of those premium chairs, it's a perfectly solid chair. You do have to assemble it yourself, but it's fairly light while still feeling sturdy. The armrests having hidden adjustment triggers is irksome, and the recline mode is both too loose and too restrictive. But those minor annoyances shouldn't steer you away from the Axion. With a wallet-friendly price and spine-friendly design, the Axion should keep you gaming in comfort for some time to come.
Qatar Tribune
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Qatar Tribune
NU-Q, ACSS launch new scholarly association for Arab Media Studies
Tribune News Network Doha The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar (IAS NU-Q) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) have announced the launch of the Society for Humanistic Arab Media Studies (SHAMS), a pioneering trilingual scholarly association dedicated to advancing rigorous, multidisciplinary, and humanistic research on Arab media in their social, cultural, and political-economic contexts. The new joint initiative, supported in part by Carnegie Corporation of New York, is part of Northwestern Qatar's Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project and builds on the Institute's long-standing partnership with ACSS. It aims to strengthen humanistic research and knowledge production in the Arab region and foster rigorous, interdisciplinary research that enriches the intellectual landscape of Arab media studies by drawing on a wide range of disciplines. This includes literature, history, and philosophy, media studies, digital humanities, and postcolonial theory. 'Working with ACSS has shown us just how powerful trilingualism can be in creating connected, overlapping scholarly publics,' said Marwan M Kraidy, dean and CEO of Northwestern Qatar. 'With SHAMS, we are building on that idea; not just to promote research on Arab media, but to bring together a multilingual network of scholars who have deep expertise about the region. What excites me most is that SHAMS will be a space led by scholars, grounded in the Arab world, and committed to critical thinking from the South about their region. It's exactly the kind of initiative we envisioned when we launched the AIMS project—and I can't wait to see how it grows.' The initiative was launched at the ACSS' seventh conference in Beirut, where the Institute led a scholarly discussion under the conference theme 'Devastation, Imaginaries and Knowledge: Regional Junctures and Global Repercussions'. Faculty and scholars from across the Northwestern University in Qatar community showcased a wide range of scholarly works. This includes an analysis of televised representations of youth in Guinea by Clovis Bergère, director of IAS NU-Q , and three film screenings curated by associate professor Rana Kazkaz and IAS NU-QGlobal Postdoctoral Scholar Chafic Najem. As part of the conference programme, Dean Kraidy chaired a panel on Arab digitalities,exploring how digital technologies are shaping everyday life across the Arab region. The panel brought together research on the intersections of media, politics, and lived experience. Panellists included Najem, who presented 'Buying Time: Regimes of Temporal Capital and the Telecommunication Vortex of Lebanon', Leila Tayeb, assistant professor in residence at Northwestern Qatar, who discussed 'Arab Drones: Being (Targeted) and Listening', and Nermin El Sherif, assistant professor in residence at Utrecht University, who examined 'Controlling 'Live': Internet Trends, Media Panics, and the Social Reproduction of a Silent Nation'. In another session, scholars explored how the 'digital' can be conceptualised and studied within an InterAsia framework. Panellists included Harsha Man Maharjan, a Global Postdoctoral Scholar at IAS NU-Q, who proposed a transregional approach to national ID systems in his presentation, 'An InterAsian Digitalities Framework: A Proposal for National Digital Identification Studies'; Ada Petiwala, assistant professor of Media Studies at the American University of Beirut, who examined how digital narratives of tolerance obscure structural violence in 'India-UAE-Israel: Tolerance/Violence in the New Middle East Order'; and Mariam Karim, also a Global Postdoctoral Scholar at IAS NU-Q, who offered a feminist intervention into digital archival practices in her talk, 'Towards a Feminist Definition of 'InterAsian Digitalities': Nazrah Arabyya'.
Business Upturn
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Upturn
VOSK Launches Sculptural Handmade Candle Collection, Elevating Ethical Decor for Modern Interiors
Vero Beach, Florida, June 24, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — VOSK, an artisan candle brand, launches its collection of vegan handmade candles with unique sculptural designs. A family-owned small business in Florida, the brand introduces a fresh new take on ornamental candles. Natural, modern, and texturally rich — a candle you won't want to burn (but absolutely can). Founded in 2024 and now making its public debut, VOSK is introducing five signature designs — each hand-poured, vegan, and uniquely textured. Created as functional art objects, these candles combine visual form and botanical fragrance to appeal to design-forward, eco-conscious consumers. 'We wanted to offer something people couldn't find on store shelves: truly individual, visually compelling candles, and consciously made,' said Oleg Piskunov, founder of VOSK. 'This launch is the culmination of over a year of prototyping, testing, and building a family-run studio we can be proud of.' The candles come in different names, with each describing its design feature: Blossom – With a form that recalls blooming tulips and pinecones, Blossom candles feature segmented wave patterns and are available in soft hues like merlot pink, bronze, gray, and ocean blue. Each variant is paired with gentle, natural scents such as lavender, cedarwood, wet stone, and emerald forest. – With a form that recalls blooming tulips and pinecones, Blossom candles feature segmented wave patterns and are available in soft hues like merlot pink, bronze, gray, and ocean blue. Each variant is paired with gentle, natural scents such as lavender, cedarwood, wet stone, and emerald forest. Fusion – Sharing Blossom's general silhouette but offering a seamless, directional wave texture, Fusion emphasizes movement and cohesion. Available in two sizes and matching fragrance profiles, Fusion is ideal for those who favor symmetry and fluidity in design. – Sharing Blossom's general silhouette but offering a seamless, directional wave texture, Fusion emphasizes movement and cohesion. Available in two sizes and matching fragrance profiles, Fusion is ideal for those who favor symmetry and fluidity in design. Knot – Abstract and playful, the Knot design mimics a braided form composed of three curved tubes. It's tactile and modern, bringing a soft sculptural element to coffee tables, workspaces, and nightstands. – Abstract and playful, the Knot design mimics a braided form composed of three curved tubes. It's tactile and modern, bringing a soft sculptural element to coffee tables, workspaces, and nightstands. Veil – The most delicate of the launch series, Veil features minimalist contours and soft, whisper-light scents. It was created for those who prefer subtle ambiance over bold fragrance. – The most delicate of the launch series, Veil features minimalist contours and soft, whisper-light scents. It was created for those who prefer subtle ambiance over bold fragrance. Vortex – VOSK's most dramatic piece. Vortex candles feature inward-spiraling patterns and deeper tones, paired with mysterious scent profiles like smoldering spices, dark wood, and green botanicals. All designs are vegan, cruelty-free, and made from eco-conscious wax blends. No parabens, phthalates, or synthetic dyes. Packaging is plastic-free and recyclable, aligning with the brand's mission of 'candles with a conscience.' Why It Matters: Timely Launch, Thoughtful Values This launch arrives at a time when both consumer tastes and environmental values are shifting. According to a 2024 study by Statista, 63% of U.S. home décor shoppers say sustainability is a deciding factor in their purchases. VOSK's official entry into the market answers this demand with a product that combines ethics with aesthetics — something few mass-produced candle brands can offer. 'We're not just selling candles; we're offering something more personal,' said Piskunov. 'Every item is touched by human hands. Every scent pairing is intentional. And every customer is treated like a friend, not a transaction.' As part of the launch, VOSK has also debuted its online store at where customers can browse the full collection, enjoy free shipping, and sign up for the brand's 'Closest Fiend' loyalty program — which offers a permanent 5% discount for returning buyers. More Than a Product: A Design Philosophy What sets VOSK apart isn't just the candle — it's the philosophy behind it. The brand resists mass production in favor of a slow-crafted, small-batch model. The result: no two candles are exactly alike, making each piece not just décor, but a collectible. The scents, sourced from natural aromatic oils, are delicate and layered, designed to enhance a space without overwhelming it. VOSK intentionally skips overpowering fragrance profiles in favor of subtle complexity — creating a sensory experience that's meant to soothe, not saturate. The visual language of the brand is equally intentional. The sculptural silhouettes make these candles display-worthy even when unlit. Whether perched on a minimalist shelf, styled into a tablescape, or wrapped as a gift, VOSK candles blur the line between utility and art. Now Available Nationwide VOSK candles are now available for purchase online at The brand currently ships throughout the U.S. and offers a streamlined, customer-centric shopping experience with an emphasis on transparency and quality. Shoppers are encouraged to explore the full range of products and scents and to follow the brand's journey on Instagram: @ and Facebook: VOSK Candles. Handmade. Seriously. Decorative candles that double as modern design objects. About VOSK VOSK specializes in handmade, vegan, and decorative candles that double as modern design pieces. Valuing craftsmanship, sustainability, and aesthetic integrity, VOSK offers a mindful alternative to mass-produced home goods — lighting up interiors with purpose and beauty, one candle at a time. The family-run business is based in Florida. Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same. Ahmedabad Plane Crash
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Vortex Energy Engages Market Maker
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vortex Energy Corp. (CSE: VRTX) (OTC: VTECF) (FSE: AA3) ('Vortex' or the 'Company') announces that it has appointed Independent Trading Group, Inc. (Address: 420, 33 Yonge Street, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5E 1G4; Website: Contact: Chris Kaplan; Email: chriskaplan@ ('ITG') as a market maker for its common shares traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the 'CSE'). ITG, as Vortex's market maker, aims to ensure a fair and efficient market for the Company's common shares, adhering to CSE policies. This involves buying and selling Vortex's shares on the CSE and other alternative Canadian trading venues. In exchange for these services, ITG will receive a monthly fee of C$5,000 from the Company. About Vortex Energy Corp. Vortex Energy Corp. is an exploration stage company engaged principally in the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral properties in North America. The Company is currently advancing its Robinson River Salt Project comprised of a total of 942 claims covering 23,500 hectares located approximately 35 linear kms south of the town of Stephenville in the Province of Newfoundland & Labrador. The Robinson River Salt Project is prospective for both salt and hydrogen salt cavern storage. The Company is also currently advancing its Fire Eye Uranium Property in the Athabasca Basin, a region renowned for its uranium deposits. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Paul SparkesChief Executive Officer, Director+1 (778) 819-0164info@ Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words 'could', 'intend', 'expect', 'believe', 'will', 'projected', 'estimated' and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current beliefs or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking information relating to, among other things, ITG's ability to enhance the liquidity of, and contribute to a fair and orderly market for, Vortex's shares and to help Vortex deliver the best possible trading experience for its investors. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information, including, in respect of the forward-looking information included in this press release, assumptions regarding the efficacy of ITG's traders and market making technology. Although forward-looking information is based on the reasonable assumptions of the Company's management, there can be no assurance that any forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include, among other things, the risk that ITG's market making services may not be effective in enhancing the liquidity or efficiency of the market for the Company's shares and that the Company may discontinue its contract with ITG following the initial term, whether or not ITG's market making services are effective in enhancing the liquidity or efficient of the market for the Company's shares. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof, and the Company not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein. The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed, approved, or disapproved the contents of this press release.Sign in to access your portfolio
The Herald Scotland
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
My wild days of sex and drugs and being mates with Madonna are over
He's up before six in the morning and in bed with the light off before 10 at night. 'I feel a totally different animal certainly, now,' he tells me as we sit together in a plush room in Ayrshire. He looks well on it. But then he always did. When he first started appearing on our screens in the early 1980s - in films like Another Country and Dance With a Stranger - he was clearly pin-up material for girls and guys who liked the floppy-fringed posh boy archetype. Actually, he thinks otherwise. 'I wasn't that handsome,' he says when I suggest as much. 'I was 6ft 5in, a beanpole. I was odd looking as well. Read more 'I took a very good picture,' he concedes, 'I was photogenic. But if you saw me in the street I was weird looking. 'I was pretty in a way, but I didn't feel very pretty and my vanity was not the vanity of thinking I was good looking. It was an inverted vanity of trying always to look more like a normal man.' I've read that he tries not to look in the mirror now. 'Never if I can help it,' he admits. 'It's like sex. I looked in the mirror for so long it got boring.' It's early May, a Friday, and Everett and I are at Dumfries House, near Cumnock. He's here to appear at the Boswell Book Festival later this evening. (If you've never been, do go. It's a great festival.) Everett has come to talk about his latest book, The American No, a fine collection of short stories that is an enjoyable reminder that he's always been at least as good a writer as he is an actor. Not that he thinks so. 'I'm not particularly proud of being either at the moment,' he tells me. 'They're both a work in progress, really. But I find being an actor much more enjoyable. Let's put it that way. Being a writer is a headf***, don't you find?' Acting is communal, he adds, and that's some consolation. You can at least share your misery. In writing that misery is yours alone. 'Don't get me wrong; to be a writer and to have a second thing to do - particularly as you get older and the jobs don't come along with the same regularity - it's an amazing gift.' But, he says, it can seem like hard work at times. 'I would love to be able to come up with something less laboriously.' Rupert Everett in Vortex at the Citizens Theatre in 1988 (Image: unknown) He's trying to work out how. 'I'd just like to have something like hypnotism to break through some kind of threshold. I think I could break through some kind of threshold. 'Writing my latest book I've stopped drinking and taking marijuana oil, which has been my staple for years, just to see if it's not the up and down of being jolly in the evening and feeling grumpy in the morning that is stopping me from being able to do it. When you say 'stopped, Rupert …? 'Stopped,' he says with some finality. And how are you finding it? 'Fine, actually. I'm sleeping better than I used to, which is good, and I feel that my brain mist is to a certain extent lifting.' But older is older, he says. He's now in his mid-sixties (he'll say he's both 65 and 67 in our time together I think he's 66. His birthday is at the end of May). 'Obviously I suppose one gets a bit slower. And it's weird with words and names and things like that. They're locked in little bubbles underground and sometimes they take a while to come up.' Life today is mostly rural. He spends his time in the English countryside with his labrador and his spaniel, a rescue dog, and his mother. 'She is mute. She has dementia. She just sits. I look after her, which I quite enjoy, and that's it.' At the weekends his husband Henrique will come down from London - or sometimes he'll go up to the city. He still has a place there but doesn't visit it often. 'I've become a country blob,' he says. He's content with this development. 'I've become much more, I suppose, conservative as I've got older. Alan Bennett said everyone did. Well, I did, definitely.' In many ways he has now conformed to the world he grew up in. His father was a Major in the British Army. His grandfather, on his mother's side, was a Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy. 'I think I came from a very particular collapse-of-empire family. It was very military, very frosty, very unemotional - all the things I really admire now by the way - and I felt that life was meant to be something completely different. Rupert Everett at the Citizen's Theatre before its renovation (Image: Mark F Gibson) 'Like everyone in our generation I felt that life was meant to be more emotional, more straightforward, more confrontational. I rejected everything that they stood for. 'I felt that sexuality was liberation. I felt that f****** everyone was somehow my way out of the background I was in, out of the prison I felt I was in. Actually, it was just another kind of prison in a way. 'And now that we've become what I wanted us to be all those years ago I really hate it because I think we're way too emotional. I really respect people who don't show too much feeling all the time. I'm so sick of people bursting into tears on television. 'I think we've completely lost the way; both sides of the border by the way. We've got what I dreamt was going to happen and it looks to me like a mess.' Has he turned into his father, I wonder? 'Umm … I understand him so much more. I definitely do. He was so careful about money and turning lights off and freezing cold rooms - all the things that we just gave up on after that generation. I now think freezing cold houses are nice. I like freezing cold houses with one warm room.' I think central heating is a good thing on the whole, I tell him. 'But central heating is like being a lettuce. You feel yourself wilting.' Born in 1959, Everett had the typical childhood of the British upper classes; packed off to prep school at an early age. It was to shape who he would become. Read more 'The reason I became an actor is because I became a terrible show-off as soon as I got to school. My way of dealing with the terror you have of other boys en masse, all together, running around screaming, hitting you if you were too wimpy. 'My way - without understanding quite what I was doing - was to become a kind of class pest and show-off, whereas before I'd been an incredibly quiet, reclusive child. I used to like hiding in cupboards, for example, and doing fun things like watching dust particles.' Hmm, I say, weren't you already cross-dressing even before you went to public school? 'I was cross-dressing. I really thought I was a girl. School changed all that, so I think it had a huge effect on me. It made me into just a show-off really. A show-off on the one hand. And I broke down like a little girl on the other. I found those two qualities have kind of gelled into the person I am in a way. They're both not quite who I feel I really am. So It's taken me years to work through them.' He paints a portrait of the British prep school as a form of continuous conflict. 'The fallout from the war was so funny in the British prep school. All the teachers were basically people who had been in Burma or in India or in the war and had wooden legs from being blown up. They weren't really teachers in the ordinary sense of the world. They used to get into terrible tempers which I think was what we now call PTSD. 'I don't regret any of it because I think the only resilience I did have came from that Spartan type of education. Because those schools in those days were much more rigorous than they are now. They were tough places. They weren't comfortable.' He left to go to London at the age of 15. 'I was allowed to go and rent a room from a family and that's when I really discovered myself and became a kind of sex maniac.' Everett now seems very distant from the young man he once was. 'I don't recognise myself,' he admits. Rupert Everett with Julia Robert's in My Best Friend's Wedding (Image: unknown) His younger self certainly embraced the hedonistic lifestyle - 'showbusiness was my cruising ground,' he suggests - but he also worked too. He won a part in Julian Mitchell's stage play Another Country and then turned up in the film version too, alongside Colin Firth. He also spent formative years in Glasgow working at the Citizens Theatre. For a while he even tried to be a pop star, but that didn't work out. Still, he has often said, sex was the driving force for him in his twenties. He was a gay man, but he had affairs with women such as Paula Yates and Beatrice Dalle, the star of Betty Blue. What were you getting from those relationships, Rupert? 'Attention. And you know being turned on by people and turning people on. That was all I really cared about. I think the tragedy of my career - if it has been one - is that it was really all about that. I should have been more serious about it.' Plus, he points out, 'my gayness was very self-loathing too. It was very wrapped up in my Catholicism and my non-acceptance of myself. So, it took me years to be in relationships with men. It was easier for me to be in a relationship with women.' Did the women you went out with know you were gay? 'Yeah, no one really cared in those days. Anyway, you're only gay when you're gay. I don't think it's that big of a deal. I always loved girls liking me because they were so attentive. Much more attentive than men. 'If you went out with a guy they'd go off to the loo and meet someone else. When you went out with a girl they were so lovely. They'd roll you little joints and make breakfast and dinner. I loved going out with girls. You got a full experience.' He mentions Dalle. 'She was an amazing girlfriend. She would have killed for her guy. And in my gay world that was unknown really. 'All the girls I went out with were so committed. Guys, all of us, we were always looking over our shoulders at something else coming along.' Careerwise, Everett was ambitious enough to go to America and try to make it in Hollywood in the 1980s. It was, he says, the most depressing period of his life, 'because I could never get on. And that was because, even though you very kindly said I was good looking, they just thought I looked like a freak. And the aesthetic in those days was much more Brut aftershave. Men with moustaches, hairy chests; big, proper men. So I was way out of the zeitgeist. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And so I don't think I ever got a job in those days. I was there for years. I was so ambitious to become something I couldn't be.' What did you want to be, Rupert? 'I wanted to be Tom Cruise. I wanted to be something I couldn't possibly have been, just from my physique. I looked like a wine bottle, one of those characters in Cluedo. So I was bashing myself against a brick wall every day in auditions and never getting anything. If I'd arrived in the late nineties I would probably have done very well. When the standards had changed for men. They were interested in gawkier, geekier, weirder types of people.' Rupert Everett starred with Madonna (Image: free) If you had become Tom Cruise, I begin… 'I wouldn't have joined scientology.' He did finally see some Hollywood success in the 1990s when he appeared in films like My Best Friend's Wedding, opposite Julia Roberts, and The Next Big Thing, alongside Madonna. But now he is in his sixties roles are sparser. He made his directorial debut with The Happy Prince in 2018, a biographical film about Oscar Wilde which he also wrote and starred in. He has other projects he would love to make but he is not confident he will ever be allowed to. 'Films aren't happening. They're just not happening. 'People aren't going to the cinema. The pandemic knocked everything on the head. You've got to hope it's going to come back, but it's probably not going to come back to the kind of things I like.' Still, he is not unhappy. 'In general I feel incredibly lucky. I've got a bit of money, I've got a nice home. I'm married. I have a husband.' As for the world, though, well, let's just say he's not optimistic. 'I feel very concerned about our country and the world, so I don't feel that good, no. And also I feel impotent in the sense that it's too late. I don't know what you can really do, aged 65? No one really listens to anyone. What would you say? But I never imagined I could care much about how things are going but I find now that as I get older …' You're ranting at the radio? 'I'm not ranting. I decided at the last election never to vote again.' Did you vote in that one? 'No. I decided if no one ever mentioned Brexit on either side I wasn't going to vote for any of them and now I'm never voting for anything ever again. 'They're all useless. Useless people. Useless ideas and everything going so badly I don't see who is going to pull us out of the hole we've dug for ourselves' He thinks for a moment. 'I guess when you're younger you're busy doing things more, so you don't notice.' Maybe this is a good time to talk about death. He has often spoken about it in the past. Now I wonder as it comes closer (for both of us) as a consequence of time passing is he nervous, afraid? 'I think death is easy. It's being ill that's not easy. Death itself … I don't want to drown very much and I don't want to die from not being able to breathe and, God, I have so many friends now who are going through chemotherapy … I don't know what I would do if I develop cancer.' But the idea of not being here doesn't bother you? We live in a world where billionaires want to move to Mars and live forever, after all. 'I don't want to go to Mars. I think Elon Musk can go to Mars and Harry and Meghan can be the king and queen of the crown Nebula. And everyone can pay 10 million dollars a shot for a pod up there. 'That's not for me. I think one of the great things is disappearing. And showbusiness, funnily enough, prepares you for death. Because you die so often in showbusiness and you have many different ways of dealing with your career deaths. 'I'm not afraid of not being here. I love the idea of not being here. And anyway our consciousness is something - it doesn't stay around as you or me - but it's part of some whole. An intelligence.' Of course Everett will live on in his films and books. Does he ever watch any of his own movies? He is horrified by the very idea. It also reminds him of a story. 'One of my agents once lived in a flat opposite Bette Davis and one day he said, 'You've got to come over.' Now Voyager was on television, on Turner Classics. We could see her watching it in her flat and that was kind of amazing.' These days Rupert Everett is not drinking. These days Rupert Everett is not a sex maniac. These days Rupert Everett is staying at home and reading a book. If we're lucky he might even write one or two more of his own. The American No by Rupert Everett is published by Abacus Books
