Simon Hattenstone

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Simon Hattenstone

Steve McQueen felt relieved when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He had no symptoms, was perfectly fit, at the peak of his game. Yet the Oscar-winning film-maker and artist believed it was inevitable. After all, his father had died from it, and he is a black man. The statistics speak for themselves. They are as overwhelming as they are bleak. One in eight men will get prostate cancer. They are two and a half times more likely to get it if their father or brother had it.

2 months ago | msn.com | Simon Hattenstone

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2 months ago | theguardian.com | Simon Hattenstone

Stephen Sackur makes no bones about it: he is not going willingly. “I don’t want to leave the BBC, because I still think I’ve got a lot to offer,” the HARDtalk presenter tells me. “And I don’t want the programme to be closed, but that argument has been definitively lost. I’m thinking hard about other things I’m going to do. I’m fine. I’m feeling quite positive.” Maybe. But I think he’s also feeling hurt, betrayed and, though he denies it, a little angry. “It’s definitely a strange period,” he says.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Simon Hattenstone

Amanda Knox says she is one of the lucky ones. She and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito had their convictions for the murder of Meredith Kercher overturned for the second and final time in 2015. She now presents a successful podcast called Labyrinths, is a TV producer and bestselling author, does standup comedy and campaigns against miscarriages of justice. She is married to Christopher Robinson, a writer, whom she adores, and they have two gorgeous toddlers.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Simon Hattenstone

Richard Blair didn’t have the easiest start in life. At three weeks old, he was adopted. Nine months later, his adoptive mother, Eileen, died at 39, after an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic she was given for a hysterectomy. Family and friends expected Blair’s father, Eric, to un-adopt him. Fortunately, Eric, better known as George Orwell, was an unusually hands-on dad for the 1940s.