The Red Bulletin September 2016 - UK

UK EDITION

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

KRISTEN STEWART

Shock tactics with Hollywood’s outsider icon

SEA LIONS

JACK HUSTON

Into the eye of the storm with Alaska’s Coast Guard

DANGER MAN FACEBOOK.COM/REDBULLETIN

for real

O N FAC E B O O K

BEN-HUR on racing chariots

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The star of

SEPT 2016 £2.50

Korahn Gayle is wistling his sessions and inviting you to join him.

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Korahn Gayle on Wistla

GET TOGETHER. SHARE TOGETHER. Korahn Gayle - Backside Tailslide - St Pauls, London.

Photo Leo Sharp.

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KURT KURT SORGE SORGE

BY MITCH

BY MITCH CHEEK CHEEK | CAPTURED | CAPTURED

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

52 NATURAL HIGH

Climber James Pearson has found the secret of happiness – you just have to enter ‘The Zone’

WELCOME

08

“The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence”

BRIAN HIGBEE (COVER), RAPHAËL FOURAU, SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT

This month, The Red Bulletin is all about getting in tune with your environment, whether that’s extreme or isolated, peaceful or pounding to the beat of EDM. Climber James Pearson explains how finding ‘the flow’ was the key to conquering some of the world’s toughest ascents, the members of Alaska’s Coast Guard reveal how they take on the most brutal of seas, while Jack Huston, the latest star of the Hollywood dynasty, heads for the original home of the Oscars. On a more relaxed tip, actor Aaron Eckhart explains how he tunes out by taking things to backwoods basics, while over in Cannes, we go access-all-areas on the film festival’s glittering party scene.

As ever, it’s about location, location, location.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

BLAKE LIVELY, PAGE 23

THE RED BULLETIN

SEPTEMBER 2016

28

AT A GLANCE GALLERY

SAFE HANDS

Becoming a US Coast Guard rescue swimmer is gruelling. Then comes the really hard part

14

GOOD SHOTS! Photos of the month

BULLEVARD 21

62

INSPIRATIONS Unique talents

FEATURES 28 US Coast Guard rescue

Braving Alaska’s icy waters with the heroic swimmers of Air Station Kodiak

44 Jack Huston

Chariot talk with the British-born star of the new Ben-Hur remake

66 CANNES WE KICK IT?

If you think the Cannes Film Festival is all about movies, you haven’t seen the parties. We go behind the velvet rope…

52 James Pearson

The man who climbed his way to contentment by going with ‘the flow’

THE POWER OF ZEN

He may be known for playing intense, challenging roles, but Aaron Eckhart is an actor with a taste for the simple life

60 Heroes of the month

Bass-playing legend Flea, actor Aaron Eckhart, UK rapper Lady Leshurr and actress Kristen Stewart

JUSTIN BASTIEN, KEFFER, DAVID YELLEN, BRIAN HIGBEE

66 Cannes nightlife

Lights, cameras, party: the Croisette rocks… if you know the right people

ACTION! 73

80 SWEDE RIDE

This could just be the supercar of your dreams: meet the Koenigsegg Regera, the Scandi hybrid set to rule the road THE RED BULLETIN

44 HIM AND HUR

As his surname suggests, movies are in the blood of Ben-Hur actor Jack Huston.

But success hasn’t come without a fight

SEE IT. GET IT. DO IT. The best travel,

gadgets, innovations, watches, wheels, films, music, games and events. Plus what’s on Red Bull TV this month, our cartoon, and how to never get lost 93 SPORT CUTS Athleisure essentials 98 FLASHBACK Shreddy salted BMX

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CONTRIBUTORS INSIDE THIS ISSUE SEPTEMBER 2016

WHO’S ON BOARD

KEFFER

Airborne: photographer Justin Bastien (left) in Alaska

Battling waves with heroes Los Angeles-based adventure photographer Justin Bastien has a background in rock climbing, but he’ll shoot in pretty much any environment. For our story about the US Coast Guard’s rescue swimmers in Alaska, Bastien flew training missions aboard a Jayhawk rescue helicopter, battled waves in 40-knot winds in the North Atlantic and went diving in the USCG’s training pool. “We had some cold days out there. I hammered the gear and got worked,” he says.

“But it was worth it.” See his pictures on page 28.

Photographer Keffer has access to all the best parties in Paris. For us, he spent three nights in Cannes during the film festival and found that stars come out to party as long as there are no smartphones around. Page 66.

RAPHAËL FOURAU

Specialising in snapping climbers, Fourau spends most of his time “hanging from a rope, searching for an incredible angle”. Trad climber James Pearson provided plenty of those. Hang out with him on page 52.

THE RED BULLETIN AROUND THE WORLD The Red Bulletin is available in 10 countries. This cover, featuring B-Boy Damien Demon, is from this month’s French edition.

Read more: redbulletin.com

IN FOCUS BEHIND THE LENS

“I was a skate kid, so shooting for The Red Bulletin was like coming full circle” BRIAN HIGBEE, PHOTOGRAPHER A regular contributor to Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue and Marie Claire, photographer Brian Higbee took Ben-Hur star Jack Huston to the site of the first Oscars to reflect on being the scion of a legendary movie dynasty, his Hollywood haunts and racing chariots for real… then they went bowling. Page 44.

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Huston, we have lift-off: the actor gives his best pose

THE RED BULLETIN

Editorial Director Robert Sperl Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck Editor-at-Large Boro Petric Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English Photo Director Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann

THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Ruth Morgan Associate Editor Tom Guise, Justin Hynes Music Editor Florian Obkircher Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Country Project and Sales Management Sam Warriner Advertisement Sales Mark Bishop +44 (0) 7720 088588, mark.bishop@uk.redbull.com Printed by Prinovis Ltd & Co KG, 90471 Nuremberg, Germany UK Office 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP Tel: +44 (0) 20 3117 2000

Managing Editor Daniel Kudernatsch Editors Stefan Wagner (Chief Copy Editor), Ulrich Corazza, Arek Piatek, Andreas Rottenschlager; Contributors: Muhamed Beganovic, Werner Jessner, Martina Powell, Clemens Stachel, Florian Wörgötter Web Kurt Vierthaler (Senior Web Editor), SchinSu Bae, Christian Eberle, Vanda Gyuris, Inmaculada Sánchez Trejo, Andrew Swann, Christine Vitel Design Marco Arcangeli, Marion Bernert-Thomann, Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz

THE RED BULLETIN Austria, ISSN 1995-8838 Editor Ulrich Corazza Proof Reading Hans Fleißner Country Project Management Thomas Dorer, Lukas Scharmbacher Advertisement Sales Alfred Vrej Minassian (manager), Thomas Hutterer, Corinna Laure anzeigen@at.redbulletin.com

Photo Editors Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), Marion Batty, Ellen Haas, Eva Kerschbaum, Tahira Mirza Illustrator Dietmar Kainrath Publisher Franz Renkin Advertising Placement Andrea Loprais Creative Solutions Eva Locker (manager), Verena Schörkhuber Country Management and Marketing Stefan Ebner (manager), Thomas Dorer, Manuel Otto, Kristina Trefil, Sara Varming Marketing Design Peter Knehtl (manager), Simone Fischer, Alexandra Hundsdorfer, Mathias Schwarz

THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Co-ordinator Christine Vitel Proof Reading Audrey Plaza Country Project and Sales Management Leila Domas Advertisement Sales Cathy Martin, cathy.martin@fr.redbulletin.com

Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Friedrich Indich, Michael Menitz (digital) Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Maximilian Kment, Karsten Lehmann Office Management Kristina Krizmanic, Petra Kupec IT Systems Engineer Michael Thaler Subscriptions and Distribution Peter Schiffer (manager), Klaus Pleninger (distribution), Nicole Glaser (distribution), Yoldas Yarar (subscriptions)

THE RED BULLETIN Germany, ISSN 2079-4258 Editor Arek Piatek Proof Reading Hans Fleißner Country Channel Management Christian Baur, Sophie Herkommer Advertisement Sales Martin Olesch, martin.olesch@de.redbulletin.com

THE RED BULLETIN Mexico, ISSN 2308-5924 Editor Luis Alejandro Serrano Associate Editors Marco Payán, Inmaculada Sánchez Trejo Proof Reading Alma Rosa Guerrero Country Project and Sales Management Helena Campos, Giovana Mollona Advertisement Sales Rodrigo Luna, rodrigo.luna@mx.redbull.com Humberto Amaya Bernard, humberto.amayabernard@mx.redbull.com

THE RED BULLETIN South Africa, ISSN 2079-4282 Editor Louis Raubenheimer Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Country Project and Sales Management Andrew Gillett Advertisement Sales Andrew Gillett, andrew.gillett@za.redbull.com

THE RED BULLETIN South Korea, ISSN 2465-7948 Editor Jung-Suk You Deputy Editor Bon-Jin Gu Publishing Director Michael Lee Advertisement Sales Hong-Jun Park, hjpark@kayamedia.com

THE RED BULLETIN Switzerland, ISSN 2308-5886 Editor Arek Piatek Proof Reading Hans Fleißner Country Channel Management Antonio Gasser Product Management Melissa Stutz Advertisement Sales Marcel Bannwart, marcel.bannwart@ch.redbull.com

General Manager and Publisher Wolfgang Winter Global Editorial Office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-28800 Fax +43 1 90221-28809 Web redbulletin.com Red Bull Media House GmbH Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Directors Christopher Reindl, Andreas Gall

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THE RED BULLETIN Ireland, ISSN 2308-5851 Editor Ruth Morgan Associate Editor Tom Guise, Justin Hynes Music Editor Florian Obkircher Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Advertisement Sales Deirdre Hughes, redbulletin@richmondmarketing.com

THE RED BULLETIN USA, ISSN 2308-586X Editor Andreas Tzortzis Deputy Editor Nora O’Donnell Copy Chief David Caplan Director of Publishing and Advertising Sales Nicholas Pavach Country Project Management Melissa Thompson Advertisement Sales Los Angeles: Dave Szych, dave.szych@us.redbull.com New York: Regina Dvorin, reggie.dvorin@us.redbullmediahouse.com

THE RED BULLETIN

GALLERY

ISLAND LIFE SANTORINI, GREECE PHOTOGRAPHY: RONNY SKEVIS

When BMX rider Panagiotis Manaras invited his friend and fellow BMX pro Sergio Layos to join him on an island-hopping tour of his home country, Layos jumped at the chance. This is Layos riding a ramp in the middle of a vineyard on Santorini for Manaras’s 247 project. “To ride a bike with a top rider like Sergio, is in itself really awesome. When you do it on four of the most beautiful Aegean islands, it simply becomes a dream come true,” says Manaras. instagram.com/panosmanaras

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RONNY SKEVIS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

WET, WET, WET DEAN TREML/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

LE MANS, FRANCE PHOTOGRAPHY: DEAN TREML

June 2016 was one of the wettest starts to a European summer since records began, and France didn’t escape. After a deluge 30 minutes before the start, the 84th Le Mans 24-hour race got underway behind the safety car for the first time in it’s history. More rain and safety cars followed (pictured is a procession winding its way through the Descente Chapelle), until one of the most dramatic finishes imaginable. With three minutes to go, it looked like Toyota were set to take their first victory at Le Mans. Then a power loss sidelined the TS050 Hybrid, leaving the way clear for a record 18th overall win for Porsche. lemans.org

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SWELL GUYS HAWAII, USA PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIAN BIELMANN

Outrigger canoe paddling places emphasis on teamwork, courage and tradition, qualities the men of the Red Bull Wa’a Hawaiian outrigger canoe team know all about. To prove their mastery of the sport, they recently took first place at the Hawaiian Airlines Liberty Challenge in New York. “It’s always different out there, with the swells, the wind, the currents. You never know what you’re going to see,” says Daniel Kekua Chun, the team’s steersman. redbull.com

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BRIAN BIELMANN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

THE HOME OF PEOPLE WHO INSPIRE, ENTERTAIN, EDUCATE, INNOVATE

STAR POWER EDGAR RAMÍREZ HAS RISEN TO BECOME KING OF THE HOLLYWOOD RING WITHOUT SHOWING EGO OR FORGETTING WHERE HE CAME FROM

JOHN RUSSO/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

Acting was only meant to be a hobby for Edgar Ramírez, who turned down film offers to complete his studies and pursue a career in international diplomacy. But his true passion won out, and a series of roles in thrillers and action movies – Domino, The Bourne Ultimatum, Vantage Point, Zero Dark Thirty, a terrific lead turn in Carlos, and upcoming releases The Girl On The Train and Gold – have kept him busy.

There’s more to Ramírez than muscle and menace, though; he speaks five languages and uses his fame for good, raising awareness of humanitarian issues in his birthplace of Venezuela and elsewhere. In new movie Hands Of Stone, he stars as Roberto Duran, the boxer who was reported to have quit a title fight with the words, “No mas” (no more). We can, however, expect much more from this 39-year-old with a talent for tackling big-screen roles and real-world problems.

THE RED BULLETIN

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BULLEVARD 2016 The animal-loving, genderfluid 23-year-old is a pillar of modern pop culture: top 20 on Instagram, top 25 on Twitter, 55th on Facebook, a committed social activist.

Next up is a role in Woody Allen’s Amazon TV series and, possibly, marriage to long-term lover Liam Hemsworth. The former child star has survived – and thrived – on her own terms.

2001 When your father is country music star Billy Ray Cyrus, your godmother country music megastar Dolly Parton, and your birth name Destiny Hope because your parents predict big things for your future, it’s no surprise that a theatre trip to see Mamma Mia! ends with you telling Dad that you want to be an actress. So begins an eight-year-old (born November 23, 1992) girl’s journey to stardom.

2015 “As long as you’re not hurting anyone, your choices are your choices,” Cyrus tells Paper magazine, for whom she is pictured nude.

A fifth studio album, the experimental Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz – made for just $50,000, outside her contract – is released online for free. Critically divisive, it reflects her refusal to curb her creative impulse.

2003 Little Destiny Cyrus bags a small role in the Tim Burton movie Big Fish. Far from moulding another identikit child star, singing and acting lessons have tapped a source of natural talent and charisma. The following year, while trying out for a TV show, Cyrus – nicknamed Miley by her family, from ‘Smiley’ – proves she has a killer work ethic, too. “I auditioned forever. At first, they said I was too small and too young,” she later says.

2014

HOW I GOT HERE FROM WINSOME CHILD STAR TO HARD-TWERKING, FLESH-BARING SOCIAL ACTIVIST: MILEY CYRUS HAS BECOME A TRUE POP ICON BY WAY OF SHEER SELF-BELIEF AND FEARLESSNESS

How to top last year’s Twitter-twatting twerking?

Send a homeless man to collect your VMA for Best Video (Wrecking Ball, of course). Unfortunately, the man has a probation violation outstanding; Cyrus bemoans the media ignoring the youth homelessness issue. Elsewhere, colleges start offering courses in her.

2012

That show, Disney’s Hannah Montana, in which Cyrus plays a regular(ish) girl who’s secretly a pop idol, is an instant success.

Cyrus becomes tabloid fodder, but somehow keeps her focus, saying, “Right now, I want to be my own person.” It’s around this time she tells her mum she’s pansexual. A decade on, LGBT youth charities are among the many causes she champions on social media.

Four seasons of Hannah, three studio albums, two Hannah films: Cyrus is the number one teen star on the planet – arguably of all-time – with reported earnings of $120 million.

Child performers have always had to grow up in the public eye, but in the age of social media it’s doubly hard. Following tattoos and break-ups (ie, normal teen behaviour), the knives are out: will Cyrus ‘do a Britney’ or, worse still, ‘a Lindsay’?

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2013 The year of the hip-hopinfluenced album Bangerz; nakedness in the Wrecking Ball video and on the cover of Rolling Stone; twerking with Robin Thicke at the MTV VMAs (which prompts a record-breaking number of tweets); smoking a joint at the MTV Europe Music Awards; saying weed and MDMA are “happy” drugs.

But this is no meltdown.

“I know what I’m doing,” she tells Rolling Stone.

“I know I’m shocking you.”

THE RED BULLETIN

TIM MÖLLER-KAYA

2011

SONY, GETTY IMAGES(3)

2006

Videos of acoustic covers showcasing terrific vocal skills start appearing on YouTube, and a haircut changes everything.

“There’s something about having no hair that screams being confident,” she says.

“People think short hair, they think tomboy. Everyone said that I was a lesbian… [but] being a lesbian is a compliment more than what else they call me.” Haters keep hating, Cyrus keeps on winning.

BULLEVARD

GO HARD

COLUMBIA PICTURES

BLAKE LIVELY FORGET GOSSIP GIRL’S HANDBAGS, IT’S THE TOUGHEST ROLES THIS 28-YEAR-OLD WANTS Blake Lively, former star of TV series Gossip Girl, is a versatile actress, having played complex roles for directors Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck and Woody Allen. This coming month, she can be seen in Allen’s Café Society and, more impressively, The Shallows, in which ‘surfer trapped on rock battles great white shark’ isn’t just the pitch, it’s the entire movie. Lively was inspired by husband Ryan Reynolds’ solo turn in man-in-coffin thriller Buried.

“That was one of the reasons I wanted to take on this movie,” she told Entertainment Weekly, “because I know how tough it was for him.”

Deadpool v Lively in the water – a very 21st-century battle of the sexes.

THE RED BULLETIN

“IF YOU HAVE SELF-CONFIDENCE, GOOD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU” 23

BULLEVARD

6.1

8 5

MICHEL BOUREZ

THE TAHITIAN PRO SURFER WAS GIVEN HIS NICKNAME, ‘THE SPARTAN’, BY FELLOW PROS IMPRESSED BY HIS HEROIC PHYSIQUE. BOUREZ’S FITNESS PHILOSOPHY IS SIMPLE: USE THE WATER, THE BEACH AND THE LOCAL DELICACIES AVAILABLE

THE HEIGHT IN METRES OF THE TALLEST WAVE HE’S CONQUERED Bourez encountered this giant wall of saltwater – “easily a 20-footer” – in Mexico. But the most dangerous wave is the one he faces most: Teahupo’o, off Tahiti, where he lives.

“An eight-footer there could be as strong as a 15-footer elsewhere,” he says, “so surfing it requires a change of mind-set.” The 30-year-old copes with challenges by viewing them as hurdles to overcome, and sees his sport as a “long, slow race” best run by constantly learning new things.

THE NUMBER OF TIMES HE EATS EACH DAY: THREE PROPER MEALS AND TWO SELF-MADE FRUIT SMOOTHIES “In Tahiti, we eat a lot of veggies, rice and fruit, so that’s automatically healthy,” says Bourez. His nutrition plan has one rule: listen. “To get better, you have to listen to your body. My body tells me what it wants, and I give it exactly that.” This usually means eating a “super-light” breakfast, a big lunch and a light evening meal, with smoothies in between, so that “the goodness goes into my system quicker”.

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VITAL STATISTICS Discipline Surfer Age 30 Height 1.75m Weight 75kg Roll of honour WSL (formerly ASP) World Championship Tour since 2009; highest overall rank, fifth, 2014. Two event wins, at Margaret River (Australia) and Rio (Brazil). ASP European Champion, 2006

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THE NUMBER OF TURNS HE MANAGES ON THE LONGEST COMPETITION WAVE “Competition surfing isn’t about standing on a board for the most time,” says Bourez, “it’s about how many turns you can do on a wave.” At Australia’s Rip Curl Pro, he performs up to eight turns on the long, low wave (elsewhere, three is standard).

To build up the agility to whip through the moves, he sprints on the sand and does stretching workouts: “A lot of pushing and turning the body, so it can move quickly and in balance.”

THE NUMBER OF HOURS OF JU-JITSU HE DOES EVERY FEBRUARY BEFORE COMPETING In February, before the WSL World Championship Tour begins, Bourez does three hard weeks of training, including two-hour ju-jitsu sessions every evening. “I see a lot of similarity with surfing,” he says.

“When you’re in trouble, you need to remain calm and look for an exit.

It’s the same in ju-jitsu.”

FITNESS TRACKER THE HOTTEST THINGS IN HEALTH

THE APP SLEEPCYCLE

You can only start to live well if you sleep well, and stats say we generally don’t. This app monitors sleep patterns (sound and movement) to wake you with an alarm only during light sleep, so you feel most rested. sleepcycle.com

THE TECH KITO+

A phone case/health tracker that measures blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, heart rate, breathing, and gives you an ECG. There’s also an app to analyse the data.

Downside: for iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s and 6s Plus only. azoi.com

THE WORKOUT MAN-MADE MUSCLE

One of 2016’s trends is building strength and muscle without equipment. Pilates, calisthenics and bodyweight routines are back; next month’s Battle Of The Bars 16 in Las Vegas are the unofficial no-kit fitness world champs. worldcalisthenics.org

THE RED BULLETIN

TREVOR MORAN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

www.volkswagen.ie

Access All Areas.

The new Tiguan. From only €359* per month.

The design of the new Tiguan leaves an impression. To say the very least.

And with an optional App Connect System together with a host of ground breaking innovations, the stunning new Tiguan allows you to access all areas with ease – online or offline.

From only €359* per month with PCP. Call into your local Volkswagen Retailer or visit www.volkswagen.ie to find out more information about the fantastic new Tiguan.

It’s more than just a car.

Tiguan 2.0 TDI 150hp CO2 emissions (g/km) 125. Combined fuel consumption 4.8 (l/100km). Model shown for illustrative purposes only. Typical Finance Example: Tiguan Trendline 1.4 TSI BMT OTRP €30,495. Deposit / Part Exchange €8,800.22. 36 monthly payments of €359. 5.9% APR. Optional Final Payment €11,590.80. Total cost of credit €2,970.02. Total cost of credit includes acceptance fee (€75) and completion fee (€75). Minimum deposit is 10%. Subject to lending criteria. This offer is made under a hire purchase agreement.

Volkswagen Bank GmbH is authorised by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority in Germany and regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland for conduct of business rules. Please contact your local Volkswagen retailer for full details.*Please visit your local retailer for the latest pricing.

BULLEVARD

DON’T BE BEATEN BY NEGATIVE THOUGHTS: MAKE YOUR FEARS AND DOUBTS YOUR SECRET WEAPONS BY HEEDING THE WISE WORDS OF THESE POSITIVE THINKERS Venus told me the other day that champions don’t get nervous in tight situations. That really helped me a lot. I decided I shouldn’t get nervous, and just do the best I can” SERENA WILLIAMS, QUEEN OF THE TENNIS COURT

“In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play.

Every time you play another show, it gets better and better”

MUHAMMAD ALI, BOXING LEGEND. RIP

TAYLOR SWIFT, POP MUSIC PHENOMENON

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. It’s not the absence of fear, it’s overcoming it. Sometimes you have to blast through” EMMA WATSON, GRADUATE WIZARD AND ACTRESS

DWAYNE JOHNSON, ROCK-HARD ACTOR

“A lot of people live in fear because they haven’t figured out how [they’re] going to react when faced with a certain set of circumstances.

I’ve come to terms with this by looking deeply into whatever makes me fearful – what are the key elements that get the hairs up on the back of my neck – and then figuring out what I can do about it” CHRIS HADFIELD, THE REAL-LIFE MAJOR TOM

FOLLOW, LIKE AND RETWEET YOUR WAY TO A SMARTER MONTH

YODA, JEDI MASTER

CLICKHOLE twitter.com/clickhole

“All that ever holds somebody back, I think, is fear. For a minute, I had fear… [then] I went into the [dressing] room and shot my fear in the face” LADY GAGA, POKER-FACED SINGER

“I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today”

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“ I hated every minute of training, but I said [to myself], ‘Don’t quit.

Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’”

EXPAND YOUR NETWORK

From the makers of The Onion, the funniest thing on Web 1.0, comes this hilarious parody of the clickbait on Web 2.0, including lame listicles, over-promising headlines, dull videos (eg, ‘Adorable! Watch This 8-Year-Old Slowly Realise His Dad’s Not All That Special’) and unrevealing surveys ‘Would A Horse Think Highly Of You?’).

VISUBAL instagram.com/visubal

See football at its finest – or certainly its bestlooking – in a collection of the beautiful game’s most beautiful images and moments. From high-gloss portraits of top pros to fan-shot match footage, the stream of eye candy here is steady and impressive. The training videos could help you improve your game, too.

THE WIRECUTTER facebook.com/ thewirecutter

Incredibly thorough analysis of tech and gadgets, geared towards an active lifestyle. To discover the best waterproof camera, for example, The Wirecutter enlisted a National Geographic cameraman. If you’re thinking of buying new kit for your next adventure, you need to spend some time here.

THE RED BULLETIN

NIKE, SARAH BARLOW, PICTUREDESK.COM, GETTY IMAGES (5)

SAY WHAT?

“Fear is the path to the Dark Side.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering”

OTTERBOX CERTIFIED DROP + PROTECTION

Symmetry

THEY BATTLE WAVES THE SIZE OF A HOUSE TO SAVE THE LIVES OF THE SHIPWRECKED, AND FLY MISSIONS IN FEROCIOUS STORMS OVER THE BERING SEA. BUT THE RESCUE SWIMMERS FROM THE ALASKA COAST GUARD HAVE LEARNED HOW TO BREEZE THROUGH EVEN THE MOST TESTING WORKING DAY WORDS: ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER PHOTOGRAPHY: JUSTIN BASTIEN

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Rescue swimmer Jon Kreske off the coast of Kodiak Island, Alaska: “Even the best training is only a pale shadow of what’s to come”

TRAINING AT RESCUE SWIMMER SCHOOL IS MERCILESS: IN SOME CLASSES, EVERYONE FAILS The quickest way to get to the scene of the action: a Coast Guard rescue swimmer leaps from a helicopter

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“THE SHIP HAD ALREADY SUNK. ITS CREW WAS SCATTERED OVER A MILE OF OCEAN” A flight mechanic (right) onboard the MH-65 Dolphin. The rescue teams fly hundreds of kilometres out into the Pacific

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THE RESCUE SWIMMERS IN KODIAK COVER AN AREA THE SIZE OF EUROPE Training off Kodiak Island: a US Coast Guard flight mechanic and his colleague in a dinghy check the guiding line

laska, 8am: it’s a chilly May morning, and rescue swimmer O’Brien StarrHollow stands in front of the US Coast Guard base in Kodiak, squinting at the sun, which sits low in the sky. Survival training is due to start in a few minutes.

“We’re practising the Star Run,” says the 42-yearold, who is dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. StarrHollow is a man with the face of a boy, but the physique of a triathlete.

The Star Run is a mountain course that all the Kodiak rescue swimmers must tackle. A gravel path with spruce trees on either side, it winds its way up Old Womens Mountain in narrow turns. The course ends at the town’s memorial to fallen military personnel – a five-pointed steel star.

The rescue swimmers must run 400m, gaining 115m in altitude, four times in a row as a drill. It’s not uncommon to see one of the runners vomit by the time they reach the monument, yet Starr-Hollow has brought along an item of fitness equipment to today’s training session that will increase the challenge further.

“It’s a mooring line,” he says, holding the frayed end in the air. “We use it to tie a cutter to the landing stage.” The rope is as thick as an anaconda, 15m long and weighs 50kg. Starr-Hollow plans to lug it along as he runs uphill.

“The point of the exercise is to not give up,” he says. Starr-Hollow lifts the end of the rope up onto his shoulders and dashes off past the spruce trees, trailing it behind him like an animal’s tail. It leaves a drag mark in the gravel.

This is just a morning workout for Starr-Hollow, which says a lot about the demands of his profession.

As an Aviation Survival Technician with the US Coast Guard, his will and stamina might determine whether or not he makes it to the end of the day. His job is to descend from a helicopter hovering above the ocean and save all those who have got into difficulties in American waters and ended up shipwrecked.

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Coast Guard rescue swimmers have to lug fishermen weighing 100kg and wearing slippery dry suits into rescue baskets, and battle through waves the size of a house during Arctic storms.

The training that rookie rescue swimmers go through is as tough as anything else the US military has to offer, with 18 weeks of water drills at a swim school in North Carolina, followed by a seven-week course in emergency medical services. The dropout rate at the swim school is more than 50 per cent; not many can cope with the combination of endurance swimming, psychological stress and little sleep.

In some classes, every recruit fails.

On the hill overlooking Kodiak, Starr-Hollow is lugging his mooring line up to the monument for the second time. He’s now clutching the end of the rope in both hands, his gaze frozen on the steel star. Behind him, five other rescue swimmers are torturing themselves as they make their way up the mountain. Many of them are wiry and tenacious; some have a wrestler’s physique.

Up on the hill, you have the best view of the US Coast Guard base. The white roofs of the hangars reflect the rays of the morning sun, and the dark grey ocean starts just beyond the airstrip. The water stretches as far as the eye can see. odiak Island is an hour’s flight from Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, in the North Pacific. It is a mountainous island with thick coniferous forests. Fat pick-up trucks with bull bars trundle up and down the few roads. The sportswear store in the capital, Kodiak, sells pepper spray to ward off attacks by brown bears.

The Coast Guard Air Station occupies one whole bay on the east of the island. There are three hangars for helicopters and transport planes, and a huge, wood-panelled central command building.

The airstrip runs right alongside the ocean. It’s the gateway to the most dangerous waters in the US. From Kodiak, rescue helicopters fly north to the Arctic Ocean, where ice floes the size of football pitches can be seen floating in the water. To the west, the Coast Guard watches over the Bering Sea, where Arctic storms transform the waves into dark blue walls. Air Station Kodiak covers an area of some 10 million km2; it’s such a large expanse that on some days there are two different weather systems within its confines.

It’s 11am. Starr-Hollow heads through the helicopter hangar, having just got out of the shower.

He finished his workout half an hour ago with some chin-ups. Oh, and he had the mooring line round his neck the whole time.

This life suits Starr-Hollow. The son of a Navy SEAL, he grew up in Montana and studied natural resources management. While at boot camp, he played the saxophone for the Coast Guard band. He has now been flying out into the Bering Sea for eight years, longer than any other rescue swimmer on the base.

The Coast Guard crews respond both day and night. If human life is on the line, they’ll go out in 36

THE BOSS ON BOARD: HELICOPTER PILOT JOHN D HESS TALKS FLIGHTS OVER THE BERING SEA, AND ANTI-PANIC MEASURES the red bulletin: How do you stay cool when you and your copter get caught in a storm over the Bering Sea? john d hess: You need at least four years’ experience as a rescue pilot to fly at Kodiak.

That helps.

And if it doesn’t?

Start your inner stopwatch and count to five, if there’s time.

That will calm you.

How does your crew prepare for tricky missions?

By critiquing each other. Even after simple manoeuvres, like recovering empty rescue baskets. Anyone who can’t take criticism puts others at risk.

Can you really assess the risk in your job?

Partly. We go by ‘risk vs gain’. If lives are in danger, you can take more risks.

What kind of risks?

Like taking more people on board. The record number is 26.

the worst weather imaginable. Pilots talk of whiteouts, where it’s snowing so hard that all the search lights will reflect is snow. From the cockpit, it looks like you’re flying through a snowball.

The standard crew onboard a Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter consists of a pilot, co-pilot, flight mechanic and lifeguard. The pilot steers the copter, the co-pilot calculates fuel use, and the flight mechanic operates the rope winch at the door on the right-hand side. The lifeguard hangs on the end of a steel cable that’s as thick as a finger.

“Good communication between all the members of the team is vital for survival,” Starr-Hollow explains.

So, how does good communication work? “You have to treat everyone with respect. Look your colleagues in the eye.

Give honest feedback.”

Rescue teams operate according to a ‘just culture’ principle, a system of trust and accountability that is also used in the world of medicine. The aim is to create an environment where you can comment on mistakes without fear of punishment, in order to improve the performance of the whole team.

“I recently noticed after a mission that my flashlight was broken,” StarrHollow says. “I hadn’t checked before we took off. Nobody knew of my mistake.

But I brought it up at the debriefing.

Admitting to a mistake is a weight off your mind. And at the same time it reminds all your colleagues to always check their flashlights.”

Just culture is a great system for improving at whatever job you do, says Starr-Hollow. “Say you’ve annoyed a client because you’ve used the wrong form of address in an e-mail. If you keep silent about your mistake, the same thing might happen to your colleagues. But if you share it, then the whole team profits from the gain in knowledge.”

These are the fundamental Coast Guard principles that Starr-Hollow quotes: always be ready to make demands of each other every day. Perform every task, however small, with care. Like sewing a harness, for example.

“Every rescue swimmer is trained how to use a sewing machine, because we maintain the cargo parachutes for the Coast Guard,” says Starr-Hollow.

And, true enough, there are four sewing machines on workbenches in the studio on the first floor of the hangar. Each of these machines has a crimson cloth cover. The bravest men in the Bering Sea have tailor-made the covers and sewn on US Coast Guard logos.

THE RED BULLETIN

Rescue swimmer Jon Kreske in the training pool at the Coast Guard Air Station: “They want to see if you crack under pressure”

Pool fitness A US Coast Guard rescue swimmer has to be able to pull a person through heavy seas for 30 minutes, then get them out of the water.

To ensure they’re at peak fitness, the rescue swimmers train twice a week in the pool, as well as working on their endurance.

Crash course: rescue swimmers in Kodiak show a pilot how to get out of the helicopter cockpit underwater

THE RED BULLETIN

The most valuable and important exercises for a rescue swimmer are: towing colleagues playing the role of a victim (known as ‘buddy tows’), swimming with equipment (flippers and a snorkel), and using rescue holds on survivors in a panic.

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Night shift at the Kodiak hangar: flight mechanics do maintenance on the tail unit of a Jayhawk

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KODIAK AIRBASE IN FIGURES

8,300 kilometres The distance a C130-Hercules transport aircraft can fly on a full tank. Four of them support the rescue missions

6helicopters The squadron fly MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters.

They search for survivors using infrared cameras

115 metres The length of Kodiak’s Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Munro.

Smaller rescue helicopters, such as the MH-65D, can land on it

187 people The number saved in 136 rescue missions in 2015

Rescue swimmer O’Brien Starr-Hollow (left) on a training run in Kodiak, carrying his 50kg mooring rope

ARE YOU PACIFIC OCEAN FIT? The minimum standards the rescue swimmers have to achieve in their monthly fitness tests are:

Outdoor fitness: the Kodiak rescue swimmers do chin-ups on the iron ladder on the side of a water tank

push-ups, with arms 50 shoulder-width apart,

in two minutes sit-ups in two minutes chin-ups (five gripping the bar from below, five from above). yard (457m) crawl in 12 minutes yard (22.8m) dive, four times in a row, with 60-second intervals yards (182m) carrying another person through water

60 10

500 25 200

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THE RED BULLETIN

own in the Air Station Kodiak pool the next day, training is taking place.

Rescue swimmer Jon Kreske is sitting on the edge of the 5m dive tower, preparing to jump into the water below.

He’s practising free fall from the helicopter, the quickest way to get to the scene if the rescue mission is happening in calm seas. Kreske stretches his legs out in front of him and pushes himself off the side forcefully with both hands. He lands in the water feet first. Although pool training isn’t ever going to be as extreme and potentially hazardous an experience as a real-life sea rescue, it’s still far from easy. Kreske, who is nine years younger than Starr-Hollow, still remembers swim school well.

“They wake you up at 3am and make you work out for four hours,” he recalls. “Then you have to rescue six people playing accident victims in a pitchblack swimming pool. Two have stopped moving and the other four are flailing about.”

A scout and competitive swimmer in his youth, Kreske has broad shoulders and an incredibly gentle voice. Despite his obvious strength, he instantly comes across as caring. How did he cope with the brutalities of rescue swimmer school?

“It’s 90 per cent mental,” says Kreske. Turns out you don’t need to be a bodybuilder or be able to swim particularly fast to become a rescue swimmer.

“The people training you have just one aim: they want to see if you crack under pressure.”

One exercise they’ve developed to help answer this question is the “bullpen”, which is essentially a panic drill in the water.

The recruit swims, with his eyes covered, towards a group of trainers, who have formed a circle at the deep end of the pool.

Once the blind recruit reaches the circle, the first instructor forces his snorkel down into the water. He then throws himself on the recruit, like a panicking, drowning man, clutching his arms and pulling him down to the bottom of the pool.

The recruit has to free himself from the instructor’s tight grip and then get them both safely back to the surface.

Once the recruit surfaces, the next instructor ambushes him and pulls him back under the water.

The attacks are repeated. Three times. Five times.

Seven times. There’s no set end to the drill.

“They want to see if you’ll give up,” says Kreske.

Kreske didn’t give up. Instead, he developed a strategy for the long days of basic training.

“I divided my working day up into sections,” says Kreske. “During the morning drills, you don’t think further ahead than breakfast. You block everything else out. At breakfast, you only think as far ahead as the end of breakfast.

“After that comes your first sub-goal: getting through the first pool session. This method of dividing the days helps you complete huge tasks that, if they were tackled together, would put too much pressure on you mentally.”

THE RED BULLETIN

THE EYES: MECHANIC JAYSON MARRERO TALKS ABOUT TEAMWORK IN EXTREME SITUATIONS the red bulletin: What does a flight mechanic do? jayson marrero: He’s the helicopter engineer and the pilot’s eyes at the accident site. We also winch down the rescue swimmers. That’s a difficult job here in the North Pacific.

What makes your area of operations so difficult?

The remoteness and the extreme weather. In Florida, a 90kph wind is a tropical storm. In Alaska we call that a bog-standard working day.

How does the extreme weather affect the teamwork on board?

It means that you have to take each training session seriously. We drop rescue swimmers onto boats that are rolling on 10m waves.

You need to be as well prepared as possible.

Do the swimmers always want to get into the water?

Of course! They’re adrenalin junkies. They bust their asses in training, week in, week out, to be fit in case of an emergency.

Kreske says his strategy works for elite training, too, and for working days that include four-hour meetings.

“But even the best training is only a pale shadow of the reality,” explains Kreske. “Ask Starr-Hollow about what happened to him.” t 3am on Easter morning 2008, Starr-Hollow was asleep in a camp bed in barracks on St Paul Island, a Coast Guard outpost in the Bering Sea, approximately 1,100km west of Kodiak, when he was rudely awoken by a rescue pilot. Starr-Hollow was part of a team keeping watch from the base during the crabbing season.

Eight minutes earlier, a trawler, the Alaska Ranger, had put in an SOS call.

There was a leak at the ship’s bow. The Alaska Ranger was sinking 370km south of St Paul Island.

Starr-Hollow leapt out of bed. “I knew right after the briefing that the situation was going to be serious,” he remembers. “In most cases, we’re rescuing crews of just three to five men from small fishing vessels. But the Alaska Ranger was a 58m trawler; there were 47 people working onboard.”

Starr-Hollow had his things packed within minutes, and he and his pilot dashed to the airstrip in an SUV. It was a pitch-black night, snow was falling, and the temperature was -24°C. Once in the hangar, the pilot and co-pilot climbed into the cockpit of the Jayhawk helicopter and put on their night-vision goggles. Starr-Hollow squeezed in next to the mechanic in the hold at the back, which is no bigger than the interior of an SUV. The Jayhawk was hovering over the scene of the accident just after 5am. But there was no sign of the stricken vessel, the Alaska Ranger.

“The ship had sunk,” Starr-Hollow explains. “The crew were strewn a mile wide across the ocean. All you could see were the flashing lights on their life jackets in the water. They were like the lights on a runway at night.”

Starr-Hollow donned his equipment: dry suit, life jacket, radio, flares, GPS, flippers and snorkel.

The Alaska Ranger’s sister vessel, the Alaska Warrior, and the US Coast Guard cutter wouldn’t arrive at the scene until an hour later. The helicopter crew were on their own and there were 47 people stranded below them in the 41

“WE’RE ALL ONLY HUMAN. WHEN IT COMES TO LIFE AND DEATH, WE ALL REACT THE SAME WAY“ Tricky work: depending on the conditions, the copter hovers between 3m and 60m above the rescue scene

RUSSIA

ALASKA

Kodiak

10 million km

CANADA

USA

2

Air Station Kodiak has the largest area of responsibility of all 17 US Coast Guard districts.

The crews fly west as far as the maritime border with Russia, north into the Arctic Ocean, and as far south as the 50th parallel north.

Typical missions include answering SOS calls from the fishing fleet off Alaska, and rescue operations on the high seas.

water. According to the instruction manual, there’s enough room in the helicopter’s hold for five survivors. Or, in case of an emergency, as many as you can somehow squeeze onboard.

The mechanic started the winch and clicked the metal hook at the end of the rope into the steel ring on Starr-Hollow’s chest harness. “He pointed to a flashing light,” says Starr-Hollow.

The mission began with the man who the current had taken furthest away. The rescue swimmer descended into the ocean. He was waist-deep in water as he grabbed the survivor. He attached the fisherman to his chest harness.

He gave a thumbs-up to the helicopter, the signal the flight mechanic had been watching out for. Both men were winched onboard. Starr-Hollow helped the survivor into the hold.

The mechanic then pointed to the next flashing light in the water. tarr-Hollow would pull 16 men out of the Pacific that night. The crew onboard the Coast Guard cutter, the USCGC Munro and the Alaska Warrior saved another 26.

Five seamen didn’t survive the night.

The Alaska Ranger mission remains one of the largest rescue assignments in the 226-year history of the US Coast Guard.

“The mission went on until mid-morning,” recalls Starr-Hollow, sitting in the classroom of the Coast Guard base. Outside, flight mechanics are pushing a Jayhawk onto the airstrip. Snow-white mountaintops glisten at the other end of the bay.

“You function like a machine during a rescue mission,” he says. “You keep on going. You can’t give up. It’s like when you’re carrying a mooring rope up a mountain.”

How has his job changed him?

“You understand that we’re all only human,” says Starr-Hollow. “It’s changed my view of people.

Anybody can get into a life-or-death situation, and no matter their place in life, their life matters.

They all have somebody who will miss them.

We all have that in common.”

To find out about current missions, go to: uscg.mil

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Hollywood royalty: Jack Huston is the grandson of legendary director John and nephew of Angelica

A HERO’S JOURNEY

O R E AT M E B T ’ N D ON COUL T S U H S ON HIS E K K C A A T J E R H O S T RN AC B U T, A B R I T I S H - B O Y W O O D T H E S E D AY S . I G H - O C T A N E R E M A K E LL SH HOME IN HO OLE IN THIS SUMMER’ -OLD DIDN’T CHOOSE R AR EE F I R S T L E A D I T ’ S C L E A R T H E 3 3 - Y E S LU X FO R D P H O T O G R A P H Y: B R IA N H IG B , AME O F B E N - H U R T H E E A S Y W AY WO R D S : J RE TO GET THE 45

I“ ’ M O N E O FH E R T H O S E R ANT G P E O P L E WELCOMI ISES L A E R O H W N A S I A M T H AT C I N E , I T ’ S A A R T F O R MP E ” LANDSCA Sitting in Hollywood’s infamous Roosevelt Hotel, the ballroom of which hosted the first Oscars ceremony back in 1929, Jack Huston is a man who seems at home where most would be overawed at the history surrounding him. But then, he’s a man who has forged his own way against the weight of expectation.

The grandson of legendary Hollywood director John Huston, and the nephew of Oscar-winner Anjelica Huston, his surname carries a reputation that could have opened many doors in Tinseltown.

The Norfolk-raised actor also has significant connections on the other side of the Atlantic, as his mother is a member of the British aristocracy.

But the 33-year-old has never traded on his famous name or privileged background, proving his own worth as an actor the hard way – with various complex and testing roles. Most notably he played the haunted and disfigured war veteran Richard Harrow in HBO series Boardwalk Empire – a role which required him to cover half his face with 46

prosthetics, as well as taking on the role of beat generation icon Jack Kerouac in Kill Your Darlings, alongside Daniel Radcliffe.

These aren’t the choices of a man preoccupied with fame, but one choosing to define his own future. This approach has led Huston to his biggest part so far, the title role in the remake of Ben-Hur. For many actors, their first starring role would come loaded with apprehension and risk, but Huston, who still speaks with a discernibly East Anglian accent despite his many years in the bright lights of LA, isn’t one to be intimidated by a challenge.

He sat down with The Red Bulletin to talk about out what does scare him, what pushes him onwards and how driving a Roman chariot isn’t all that different to Formula One… the red bulletin: We’re shooting in The Spare Room, a popular Los Angeles hangout. Do you have any other favourite Hollywood haunts?

Getting in character: Huston dropped 14kg to play the slave Judah Ben-Hur

jack huston: I had my own Hollywood haunt, a place that was called The Writer’s Room. It’s not around any more, but it was in the back of Musso & Frank.

My granddad, F Scott Fitzgerald, [William] Faulkner – all these guys would go have dinner at Musso & Frank and then they would move to the back room where they would drink whiskey and talk ideas and write, and it was known as the Writer’s Room. So we for a while turned it into a cool private club/bar. They hadn’t used the space in something like 70 years, so we got all the stuff out and then turned it into the greatest place. That was like an oldschool spot. I have lots of other places that I’ve been going to for years, but I’m now a homebody. I like to be at home most of the time. I think that’s the great thing about LA – people come to see you or you go to see them.

You’re reinterpreting one of the most famous roles in cinema in Ben-Hur. Was that intimidating?

I’m one of those rather welcoming people where cinema is concerned; one of those people who realises it’s an art form, it’s a landscape. And if four painters look at the same landscape, you’re going to end up with four

’ E V O L N I L L A F ‘ O T E “ I H AV C H A R A C T E R T O P L AY WITH THE ACTER” THE CHAR

ila ni A NT M ar co M ne ry AS SI STIN G Da vi d St an w el l an Fl a tr Pe GR OO M ST YL IS T

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Home from home: Jack Houston in his element in the infamous Roosevelt Hotel

Filming for Ben-Hur took place in Rome: “Oh man, it was the worst place to be off carbs and alcohol�

D L U O C I K N I H T G T ’ N I N T D I S E D R I E T “IF N I G N I H T E N E M V O E S E G V N I A H BR T ’ N D L U O W M I L I , F W A E N N O R O T O O F P E T S D A R E D T O R E AT E R T H E R I S K , S E T . T H E GT E R T H E P AY - O F F ” THE GREA

very different paintings. It’s a beautiful thing to be open-minded about this stuff. As an actor you look for roles that are even half as good as the role of Judah Ben-Hur, it’s one of the great roles. The reason why it’s been done so many times is because it’s just one of the great stories. The last version, the 1959 version, marked the first time anything of that size had been done. It was this spectacular, it was this grand, amazing, sweeping epic. They built the real set, they had real extras. But the style of acting and everything else changes through time, and on this one I was very pleased to ground the character in reality.

I tried to bring a very serious realism to the character of Judah Ben-Hur. People try to change, but they really don’t. What I mean when I say that is we still love, we still hate, we still find redemption, we still find the little nuances in life. Even though it was 2,000-plus years ago that the story was set, Judah was still a man.

And I tried to find the reality of who he was as best as I possibly could.

It’s also a tortured character in many ways. You’ve played many tortured men in the past, such as Richard Harrow. How do you draw on your own life to inform these performances?

It’s funny, it’s something within us, that trick of the mind that can use our own experiences to bond with the character.

I always come to these parts from a place of love. I have to ‘fall in love’ with the character to play the character. If you fall in love with the character, you start to feel certain things, and I always become very attached to the characters I play.

With this role, like with Richard Harrow, I started to feel things that I didn’t know existed when I first read the script, or subsequent readings. It was six months of a brutal shoot – it was beautiful, but I lost 14kg during the shoot to play the slave, and when you see our faces in the chariot races, that’s really us in the chariots, there’s no green screen. When you put yourself in those situations and, at the same time, have this deep love for the character, I felt we started to get quite honest about the situation our characters were in.

So it’s really you driving chariots in the film. What was that like?

It was mad. I mean, when do you get the opportunity to do that in life? [Laughs.]

That’s the crazy thing about this business; you get to experience things that you

wouldn’t normally get the chance to experience. With the chariots, we really trained on those things, starting on a seated car with two horses, then a seated car with four horses, then you progress to a standing chariot with two horses, then finally with four horses.

Whatever anyone tells you, it is hands down the scariest thing to do initially, and then you find your way. It was exhilarating, but absolutely crazy. There are moments where you’re absolutely convinced you’re going to die, but I think that only adds to the experience. The way I look at it, these guys were like the F1 racers of their time, it was like NASCAR. This was the first real sport, with the spectacle of the arena and the crowds, and we were feeling what they must have been feeling when we were doing it.

How do you cope with that fear? Are you naturally a bit of a thrillseeker?

Yeah, I’ve done lots of thrillseeking things. I’m quite an active person as you have to be in this business. With the chariots, like most things that are scary, the first day is the worst, the first day is always the hardest. Then, when you make it through the first day you think, “Oh, maybe I can get through this.”

Rather than being scared or fearful, you start to embrace and enjoy it. I found such enjoyment in doing the chariot stuff; it was a beautiful thing.

There are many actors who would, and have, used their family name to get a leg up into the spotlight, but you haven’t. You’ve forged your own path and taken interesting roles that have defined you individually as an actor. Was it always important to distinguish yourself this way?

I remember something I was told by my uncle when I was very young. He said, “Don’t be one of those arseholes who feels ashamed of what your family

has done – embrace it, be proud of it,” and I have always been incredibly proud of what they did. So I think that I’ve always been trying to make them proud, stand up and do the best possible work I can do. To achieve that, I think not going the average route makes real sense, because you have to take chances.

Playing certain characters meant me taking a big chance, a real risk in some ways for my career. But if I didn’t think I could bring something interesting or new, I wouldn’t have even dared to step foot on a film set. The greater the risk, the greater the pay-off.

For every Ben-Hur there must be a lot of roles you didn’t win, how do you deal with disappointment?

It’s very hard to get started in this business, so there is a heck of a lot more disappointment when you start out. It’s an uphill battle and you’re just trying to make your way. I’ve had disappointments, but I think I became so attuned to it, I became a bit of a realist about it. You’re never going to be right for every role, so the ones you are right for are the ones worth fighting for.

This is one of the roles that you’ve fought for and won. Are you ready for the type of attention a successful blockbuster can bring?

It’s one of the few parts of this that I find quite difficult, because I’m kind of a homebody – I’ve got my kids, I’ve got my partner [American model Shannan Click]. I’ve also seen it from that very young age, going to visit my aunt, my grandfather, my uncle. So I understand what comes hand in hand with it. I think there’s a healthy dose for everything. I’ve always loved the work, I’ve always enjoyed the creative aspect, but I recognise that there’s a public persona as well as a private one. I think if you can stand by your work, that’s the most important thing.

Ben-Hur is in cinemas on August 26. benhurmovie.com

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ENTER THE ZONE WHILE TRAINING TO BECOME ONE OF THE WORLD’S BEST CLIMBERS, JAMES PEARSON ENCOUNTERED THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS. AND SO CAN YOU – WHETHER YOU’RE UP FOR SCALING ROCKS OR NOT WORDS: MATTHEW RAY PHOTOGRAPHY: RAPHAËL FOURAU 52

Pearson hangs from a cliff at the Calanques, near Cassis in the South of France

T

he afternoon sun bounces off the ochre cliffs like they’ve been hammered from bronze as James Pearson hangs, onehanded, 200m above the crashing surf.

It’s impressive stuff, though still breadand-butter for Pearson, who feels at home on steep limestone overhangs, fingertips locking into minuscule rails of rock, toes pressing into the merest suggestion of a foothold, high above dizzying falls. He makes it look easy.

Make no mistake, it isn’t.

When accomplishing these feats, Pearson never gets a sense of the aweinspiring scenes he creates. Once he zooms in, nothing else exists. “On very hard routes, once I start climbing I’m so focused that everything else disappears,” he says. “From leaving the floor to topping out on the route, there’s just me and the rock in a magic little bubble.”

This altered mode, known as entering ‘The Zone’, is not unique to the British climber. The euphoric – or ‘flow’ – state of high performance can be experienced while doing everything from playing Call Of Duty to running a 100m sprint.

Much has been written about flow by psychologists, who identified a point at which the right level of challenge meets the appropriate level of skill. When your mind is clear and you’re totally focused, something clicks and allows you to reach your true potential. “You almost don’t even remember the climbing,” says Pearson. “It just flows and you have this magical performance moment where everything is just perfect.”

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By unlocking The Zone and finding fulfilment in his passion for rock climbing, Pearson has achieved a dream life in which he searches the world for nextlevel trad climbs, with his French proclimber wife, Caroline Ciavaldini. But finding your flow isn’t simple, even once you’ve found your passion. It’s been a long climb to the top for Pearson.

When he was just 19, Pearson repeated what was then the hardest trad rockclimbing route in the world: Equilibrium, on home gritstone in the Peak District.

“I grew up in the Peak, and from an early age I loved being out in nature and exploring the crags,” he says. “Gritstone climbing tends to be just using friction between your boots or hands and the rock to go up the faces. There are very few actual holds and even fewer cracks or holes. This makes it heart-in-themouth stuff, because parts of the route can’t be protected – if you fall here, you die, simple as that.”

Pearson drilled the moves of the climb in safety, tied to a rope attached to the top. But right in the lethal ‘no-fall zone’ there was one move where he had to blindly place a foot on the other side of an arête, which was easy to miss. And every time he missed it on the top rope, he fell.

Though it was a sketchy prospect, he eventually decided to attempt the climb without the top rope. “This was a physical level so far above other stuff I’d tried, and I was so focused that right from the very beginning I lost myself,” he says. “This was the first moment I experienced really

“ON VERY HARD ROUTES, ONCE I START CLIMBING I’M SO FOCUSED THAT EVERYTHING ELSE DISAPPEARS. THERE’S JUST ME AND THE ROCK IN A MAGIC LITTLE BUBBLE”

THE RED BULLETIN

Born and bred in the Peak District, Pearson has climbed from an early age

being in The Zone and becoming totally immersed in the experience.

“Then, at the top, it’s just ‘Whoosh’ and suddenly your vision opens up from this little 1m square and you can start to hear things again, like your friends at the bottom, cheering. You can feel the cold of the snow on the ground and the wind on your back. All these senses had been closed off, because you were so focused on what needed to be done.”

But Pearson almost didn’t make it to the top. “Of course, I missed the foothold,” he says. “I remember watching my fingers uncurl off this tiny, tiny little pebble hold and being so much in this bubble that the concept of failure existed, but the consequence of falling didn’t.”

Pearson made another discovery, which, as it happened, saved his life that day. “With that level of calm came this new physical level of strength. Even now, I don’t know how I did it. My thumb had come off [the hold] so I had this tiny little pebble under just one finger. I remember looking at it and somehow pulling back into the position and placing my foot.”

Pearson’s natural talent was for pushing the limits of rock climbing like this on routes requiring cat-like balance, delicacy and luck, where any mistake could be fatal. He couldn’t push the envelope on routes that were a trial of strength, because he was relatively slight.

It made his name as an athlete, but it was also a deal with the devil.

“I developed a system where if the moves were hard, my logical mind would turn off, my body would take over and I would be in this little body of calm where nothing was scary and the physical side of things felt easier,” he says.

“Movements that had been impossible when I was in safety on the top rope suddenly became easy when it mattered.”

Pearson found himself playing a deadly game of roulette, chasing evermore risky routes in the Peak, just to claim the high grade, even if the climb itself was ugly. “All of the positive feelings that I felt towards myself came from just being a high-performing climber,” he says. “But you know that if you drive a car, one day you’ll crash. It may not be your fault – it may be the weather – but it’s going to happen. It was the same when climbing these dangerous routes.”

Pearson’s reliance on this feeling of flow was misplaced. It was the discovery that wealth, material goods and fame don’t bring happiness that first led Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to research what actually does. The result was his flow 56

theory, which he called “the secret to happiness”. Though Pearson was experiencing a lot of what characterises flow, in his pursuit of glory he was missing a fundamental aspect. Part of finding flow is intrinsically loving the activity for what it is, truly connecting with the moment. Thoughts of external reward, such as the kudos and the sponsorship deals that come with being

a pro climber, degraded the experience, not to mention increasing what were already big risks.

The pressure of being a pro climber meant Pearson felt he had to push the limits to maintain his status. “At the base of these climbs, I would feel physically sick with all the anxiety,” he says. “Then, as soon as I got onto the rock to lead the route, I was 100 per cent focused, the THE RED BULLETIN

At times, there’s little more than a finger’s grip and a shallow foothold between climbing and falling

“YOU ALMOST DON’T EVEN REMEMBER THE CLIMBING. IT JUST FLOWS AND YOU HAVE THIS MAGICAL PERFORMANCE MOMENT WHERE EVERYTHING IS JUST PERFECT” THE RED BULLETIN

anxiety fell away and I was in The Zone again, flowing from move to move. But I understood, even at the time, that this was a very dangerous way to climb.”

Even before he started these climbs, Pearson’s fear of failure was overriding the terror of falling. This wasn’t a sustainable situation. As he found out, all the pieces must be in place before 57

you can truly find your flow and master your sport in the process.

In 2008, Pearson spotted a new ‘nextlevel’ route high up on a sea cliff in Devon.

The Walk Of Life, a 50m monster, requires great skill, strength and stamina. It’s the complete climbing challenge. As one of the best in his sport, Pearson assumed he was up to it, despite not having done any climbing endurance training.

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The climbs that had made his name were short, intense bursts of effort, scaling 20m of rock at most. The challenge level of The Walk Of Life was way above Pearson’s ability level, and his usual climbing flow was swallowed by his fear. “I basically found myself terrified for an hour,” he says. “When you’re scared, you over-grip.

When you over-grip, you get more tired and it feels harder than it should be.”

By the time he completed the route, after months of work and a massive fall on one attempt, he had climbed out of his skin.

“It was the biggest physical and mental effort I’d given in my entire life,” he says.

“So I gave it an astronomical grade of E12 7a.” This made it the world’s hardest climb by a huge margin.

When super-fit Scottish climber Dave MacLeod repeated the route in 2009, he THE RED BULLETIN

The rock faces at Russan, close to the French city of Nimes, are a pro climber’s playground

“ALL OF THE POSITIVE FEELINGS I FELT TOWARDS MYSELF CAME FROM BEING A HIGH-PERFORMING CLIMBER. BUT YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU DRIVE A CAR, ONE DAY YOU’LL CRASH” THE RED BULLETIN

promptly downgraded it to E9. Cue a backlash against Pearson’s assessment as internet forums flared into life. He wasn’t just burnt, he was roasted alive.

“I’d built a house of cards,” says Pearson, and its collapse threatened to destroy everything he’d achieved. He left the country and moved to Innsbruck with the aim of becoming the more complete climber by working on his stamina. But his inexperience in fitness training soon became evident, and he became distracted by freeskiing, mountain biking and partying.

It took a chance meeting with fellow pro climber Ciavaldini to reignite his passion. “I told her my training wasn’t going anywhere,” he says. “She just laughed at me, saying, ‘You’re not training, you’re just playing on the rock with your friends.’ She offered to train me, promising three things: it would be boring, it would be painful, but it would work.”

This was the start of a long journey back to form, during which he mastered Muy Caliente, an E10 in Pembroke, Wales, on his first attempt. No one had even tried the climb before, let alone achieved it. As soon as he put one foot on the rock, Pearson remembers, he returned to The Zone. “It was a route that perfectly fitted a combination of my old and new strengths.”

It was still a risky route, but this time he had meticulously prepared for the challenge, using visualisation and

training specific moves until he knew that all the components necessary to achieve true flow – skill, strength, fitness and psychological preparation – were in place. This also included a method of dealing with the pressures of expectation.

“I climbed with my iPod,” he says.

“I was playing a Stanton Warriors mix that was timed to build through the hard section of the climb and then drop just after the rest section. The beat dropped, I set off and I was just lost in the thing, just flowing. Even talking about it now, I get goose bumps, because I can remember being lost in that moment. It was just amazing – nothing else existed.”

Right now, as Pearson dangles from an outrageously overhanging cave roof, he isn’t trying to bolster his confidence by bagging a grade. He and Ciavaldini are redefining what it means to be a pro climber by exploring the world, opening up new areas to discover beautiful but hard new lines, and creating opportunities for local climbers with their charity, SPOT (Share Progress Open Teach).

Pearson is on a mission, tirelessly searching for that aesthetically and athletically perfect, next-level trad line.

He’s doing this not for some kind of overblown legacy, but for the sake of the climbing itself – to find happiness in that all-consuming moment. ‘It’s a kind of peace,” he says. “You can’t find that same feeling anywhere else.” onceuponaclimb.com

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HEROES

“YOU NEED CRACKLE AND SMOKE!” FLEA The Aussie rock god that is the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bass player tells us why conflict with other band members is grist to the creative mill

the red bulletin: You and Anthony Kiedis are bound together by a 40year friendship and 33-year career. Do you ever argue?

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flea: All the time! Over any tiny little thing. I’m not sure that there’s anything we don’t argue about.

Really?

Sure. But I admit we don’t argue now the way we used to in the past. In our 20s we’d often be so pissed at each other that we wouldn’t talk for days at a time. Now we’re more reasonable. We don’t take things so personally any more, because we know that we’re there for each other when push comes to shove.

Don’t all those tensions affect your working relationship?

In his autobiography, Kiedis calls you his soulmate. How do you see your friendship?

In the same way. We’ve been through so many firsts together: stealing, fun with girls, taking acid. When we’re together there’s this energy that makes everything possible.

But if I’m honest, I’ve never read his book. I was afraid to.

Why? I flicked through it a couple of times. There were bits in it that flattered me, but there were other parts that really annoyed me. Like, ‘That’s not true at all!’

Everyone remembers things differently, that’s true. But I didn’t want our friendship to suffer as a result.

“WE FEEL THIS INCREDIBLE HIGH WHEN WE’RE CREATING MUSIC. IT’S BASED ON FRUSTRATION AND ANGER” On the contrary. Anthony and I have felt this amazing high ever since we’ve been creating music together, and I think that high is based on frustration and anger.

What do you mean by that?

It’s easy to say something to someone that you know is going to make them happy.

Criticising a friend isn’t a nice thing to do, but it’s all the more important so you can both move forward.

OK, but how do I find my polar opposite?

You can’t plan for it. Do you want to know how I met Anthony? At a fight. I was 14 years old and I was beating the crap out of this annoying guy in my class at school. Anthony appeared out of nowhere and roared at me, “Leave the guy alone!”

We had this huge fight that ended up with us hugging and laughing. And not long after we were friends.

Did you stumble across the passages about your sister?

You mean that he had sex with her? I knew all about it. I was in the next room that night.

Some male friendships have ended over less...

If my sister’s screwing anyone, then let it be my best friend.

I was actually pleased that she liked him as much as I did.

Marcel Anders New album: The Getaway; redhotchilipeppers.com THE RED BULLETIN

JAY L. CLENDENIN/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

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hey’re the most infamous twosome in the world of rock ’n’ roll after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: Anthony Kiedis and Michael ‘Flea’ Balzary, the two longeststanding members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Between them they have sold 80 million albums in the last 33 years, and earned themselves a place in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Of course that’s down to musical talent, but over the years there has also been plenty of authentic rock ’n’ roll behaviour. The history of the band is littered with members coming and going and – until the late 1990s – well-publicised and excessive drug use. But they’re still going. Somehow, through it all, their creativity has managed to survive the drama.

How? According to Flea, who’s now in his 50s, it comes down to facing, rather than avoiding, the inevitable conflicts.

What makes for a productive creative relationship?

It needs to crackle and smoke. Look at the great pop duos. Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, for example. All eccentrics individually, but together they created amazing music.

So if someone wants to be successful, then they should find their polar opposite to work with?

Exactly that. Find yourself a sounding board! And, just as importantly, live out your contrasts. You can’t fit in or do yourself down if you want to get the best out of yourself and your partner.

That would get boring pretty quickly, like in a marriage.

Flea, 53, bass player and relationship adviser: “Don’t do yourself down, otherwise things will get boring pretty quickly”

Aaron Eckhart, 48: “In Hollywood, the person with the biggest balls wins the biggest prizes�

“I STILL HAVE A LOT TO SAY” AARON ECKHART The serious-minded actor explains how living the simple life gives him a much greater sense of self

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DAVID YELLEN, ALEX DE MORA

t the age of 48, Aaron Eckhart has built a career playing good men on the edge of darkness. At the end of this year, the California-born actor costars in two biopics: in Sully (in cinemas from December), he plays Jeffrey Skiles, the co-pilot who assisted Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) in the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549, and in Bleed For This (out in the US only from November 4), he portrays Kevin Rooney, the trainer of professional boxer Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller), who returned to the ring 13 months after breaking his neck in a near-fatal car crash.

Both are challenging, intense roles in which Eckhart faces the heavy responsibility of playing men who hold the fate of other people’s lives in their hands. But, in reality, he is naturally Zen, a trait he attributes to his maturity and the quiet life he leads outside the spotlight. the red bulletin: You once said, “The simpler life is for me, the better life is for me.” Why is that? aaron eckhart: I am a simple man in the sense that I don’t have a big life.

As you become older, the most important thing is to know thyself. Earlier in my career, I would try to be everything to everybody.

I don’t do that any more; I’m just me. Having a ranch in Montana helps me do that.

THE RED BULLETIN

How so?

When I get there, I just stare at the water in the creek for hours. I move rocks, I clear the brush, I make fires and I look at the clouds. It obviously has a very soothing effect on a person, and it makes all the bullshit go away. I’m happy just leading my life and being an easy, simple person.

Do you feel satisfied with what you’ve accomplished?

No. I feel I still have a lot to say, and I need to say it in a different way. I’m very blessed to have had this career, but it’s not enough yet. I have to take more control of my message and who I am.

Who do you look up to?

I’m a huge Sean Penn apologist. He’s got courage, he’s got convictions and he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is.

He’s also an activist. Do you have a political message?

I look at things more as a whole. When I do movies, I want to see how we all come together instead of how we’re all different. That is where my energies go, whether it’s race or religion or politics. I don’t like all the fighting. I like the message that we’re all the same.

Has there been any role where you felt the power of that message?

[Long pause.] No. [Laughs.]

But there’s still time!

Hey, I’m not dead yet. I think after this interview, I’ll maybe have two years left to live.

Nora O’Donnell sully-movie.com sully-movie.com; bleedforthisfilm.com

Iron Lady: the haters on YouTube are no match for this 23-year-old

“TURN NEGATIVITY INTO CREATIVITY” LADY LESHURR The feisty wordsmith is tipped as the UK’s next rap sensation. Here, she explains how Snapchat can boost your confidence the red bulletin: You avoid rap clichés like violence and drugs, yet your Queen’s Speech Ep.4 video had 29 million YouTube views. How did you do it while staying authentic? lady leshurr: I’ve never even sworn in my lyrics! Promoting violence isn’t an option, because I don’t live that life. I use silly jokes and cultural references instead – things I’m happy with.

I’d already proved my technical abilities, and on the Queen’s Speeches I put the real me into my music for the first time.

What empowered you to do that?

It sounds corny, but Snapchat has given me a lot of confidence.

I feel I can show my silly side, and people really appreciate it.

But with success comes negativity, too. How do you cope?

In Queen’s Speech Ep.4, I say, “How could you talk my name and you ain’t even brushed your teeth?” That’s my reaction to a hater’s early-morning tweet. The trick is to turn negative comments into creativity. Florian Obkircher See her live at Bestival (Sept 8-11) or watch the live stream on redbull.tv

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Kristen Stewart, 26, gets satisfaction from working with people who keep her on her toes

“I LIKE PEOPLE WHO SHOCK ME” KRISTEN STEWART The actress is proud of her

Twilight years, but now she shoots with Woody Allen – and dreams of being a tree on wheels

K FABRIZIO MALTESE/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES

risten Stewart made her name in the multimilliongrossing global hit Twilight when she was just a teenager.

Since then, the LAborn actress has achieved what few manage: to combine financial success, mainstream popularity and critical acclaim. It’s clear she has a strategy, but it doesn’t seem to involve a management team and endless meetings.

Stewart follows the people who keep her interested, sweats off the bad times and ponders life’s big questions… the red bulletin: Now you’re 26, how do you feel about the Twilight Saga film trilogy that made you a teenage superstar? kristen stewart: I’m proud of those movies. I don’t want to distance myself from them, if that’s what you mean.

From the outside, it looks as if you’ve consciously altered your career trajectory: since the Twilight Saga, you’ve done acclaimed art-house features, won a French film award. For your upcoming THE RED BULLETIN

movie, Café Society Society, you worked with Woody Allen…

But I’ve brought the same energy and emotional investment to every project.

So, what makes you say yes to a film? Money? Fame?

People. I want to work with people who get me going.

In what way?

There is this addictive energy that passes through a group when you all love the same thing. When you share that, you’d have to be a sociopath not to let it touch and affect you. I have so much faith in

“I’m not as cool as I could be, or as smart or challenged.

I need to meet people who can help me achieve that.”

That’s not easy…

Of course not. Which is why, in high school, I was friends with people who others didn’t want to be friends with.

Who did you avoid?

I’ll give you an example: years ago, I went to a party with some friends – they were still in high school – and I felt so uncomfortable. It was just a room of people not speaking.

I mean, they were talking, but they weren’t saying anything!

Do you still get socially uncomfortable today?

I get uncomfortable when

helps you hit reset when you can’t get out of your head or you’re having an anxiety attack. It’s like, “Dude, go outside and take a run and I guarantee you that your body is more powerful than your mind.” That’s so true.

So adrenalin always works?

Not necessarily. I write poetry and play guitar, too. Someone once asked whether I identify more with a tree or a car…

And? Neither exclusively. There are positive and negative things about both. The tree has roots and doesn’t change on a whim.

Then again, times change, so ideas should, too. Life moves forward constantly. The car

“IT’S LIKE, ‘DUDE, GO OUTSIDE AND TAKE A RUN AND I GUARANTEE YOU THAT YOUR BODY IS MORE POWERFUL THAN YOUR MIND’” that feeling, I’ll always follow it, even if it means missteps.

What kind of people have that effect on you?

I like to surround myself with people who can shock me, which is true of all my friends.

They’re not lazy or complacent; they’re demanding, but also ready to give.

When did you first start going after those types?

At 14 or 15, which was the stage when I started thinking,

I feel I’ve been misinterpreted.

I’m not saying that anyone’s perception of me is necessarily wrong, but what I strive for is to be understood. I want my points to be understood, which means I have to be clear on what they are. I’m comfortable as long as that feels true.

Do you have an antidote when things are going badly?

Physical activity is the best way to feel connected and alive again. Just sweating. It

never stops moving, but it doesn’t stop to think about things. To cut a long story short, I’d like to be a tree on wheels. Or an electric car that has to plug in once in a while.

I’m not necessarily ‘born to run’. You can’t keep searching endlessly; some days, you need to just walk in the sun.

Rüdiger Sturm Café Society opens on September 2; facebook.com/cafesocietyfilm

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Another glamorous partygoer steps out of a Porsche 918 Spyder outside Gotha. It’s par for the course at this exclusive nightspot

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NIGHTS AT T H E MOVIES D O E S T H E C A N N E S F I L M F E S T I VA L S T I L L P A R T Y H A R D ?

THE RED BULLETIN EMBR ACES THE MADNESS TO FIND OUT

Words: Hans Hammer and Rüdiger Sturm Photography: Keffer

F 3.14 Cannes is where the rich and beautiful go to party. But you’ll have to know the right people to join them

LEVEL THREE IS OTHERWISE K N O W N A S U LT R A - V I P. H E R E , I T ’ S € 5 0 , 0 0 0 F O R A TA B L E

Lily & The Prick perform a soundcheck on the terrace at UGC as luxury mega-yachts bob about in the bay across the promenade

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or 11 crazy days and nights each May, movie producers, screen legends and socialites from all over the world make the pilgrimage to Cannes on the French Riviera.

Their official purpose here is to attend the iconic annual film festival.

Unofficially, they’ve flocked to the Côte d’Azur for a non-stop party with the planet’s most starstudded line-up.

To document the festival fever, we enlisted the services of ace nightlife photographer Keffer, a man who has documented Paris’ club culture like no other for more than a decade.

“Rick Ross is at Gotha today,” he says within minutes of our arrival in Cannes. “I’ll get us VIP entry.” As conversational

icebreakers go, it’s a good one: P Diddy protégé Ross is a multimillion-selling rap star, and Gotha is the go-to address in town, a venue at the pinnacle of the nightlife hierarchy.

Level one at Gotha: the dancefloor. You might get in if you’re well connected or with the right people.

Level two: the VIP area. You’ll need to be comfortably off to make yourself cosy here with a good bottle of something.

As comfortable as Gotha regular Karl, for example.

“I used to come here with my dad when I was a teenager,” he explains, breaking into a wry grin.

“After taking over my father’s business, I still come here. But nowadays I pick up the bill!” And it’s a bill of Lotus Elise proportions, naturally.

Finally, there’s level

three, otherwise known as ultra-VIP. Here, it’s €50,000 for a table.

Anyone who hasn’t been on an Oscars shortlist recently will be politely ushered out by two elegant but very large men who will ask to look at your smartphone.

“Mobiles have changed everything,” says Keffer, “and not just in Cannes.

Stars are afraid someone will take their photo in a private setting.”

The following day, we’re basking beneath

Above: Philippe and Clara, female performers. Only one is a woman. Right: DJane Nubia makes herself comfortable

an impossibly deep azure sky on the terrace of film distributors UGC. From the terrace, there’s a marvellous view across the bay of Cannes. French folk-pop duo Lilly Wood & The Prick have announced they will be performing.

It’s 4pm, so high time to get the party started.

Backstage, Keffer meets DJane Nubia, a friend of both Lilly Wood (real name: Nili Hadida) and The Prick (curiously, not his real name either; that would be Benjamin Cotto), who is dancing on a sofa. Basquiat originals line the walls like so many posters.

Nubia recommends the club at the hotel 3.14 Cannes (the one with the Instagram-worthy pool on the roof). Keffer will be heading along there later this evening to watch the burlesque show, hear some firstclass electronic music, 70

and rub shoulders with the club’s amazingly beautiful clientele. The photographer is a big fan of the venue, so decides to stay till morning.

The next day, Keffer wants to check out Nikki Beach, the seafront club at the celebrities’ hotel of choice in Cannes, the Intercontinental Carlton.

Among the guests is Robert de Niro, who is holding the party for his upcoming movie, Hands Of Stone, at the hotel.

De Niro is shielded from the throng by a barricade as strong and immovable as his movie’s title – a phalanx of Nikki Beach staff surround the Hollywood legend.

As you look out across the harbour, one megayacht catches your eye.

It’s 126m long and has

Top: the view from the ultra-VIP area of Gotha, with Swiss DJ Luciano at the decks.

Right: High glamour, huge bar bills… but at least the music is free

PAUL ALLEN’S PART Y IS THE HOTTEST TICKET IN C A N N E S : S TA R S O N LY A N D NO CAMERAS

Above: French model and actor Willy Cartier, the face of many luxury brands and hip music videos

its own basketball court onboard, plus three helicopters and space for submarines. The vessel, named Octopus, belongs to Paul Allen, the man who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates.

Allen may only be 40th in the list of the world’s richest people right now, but his $17.5 billion fortune probably provides some kind of consolation.

For a start, it allows him to organise massive events, and Allen’s party is the hottest ticket in Cannes: 100 per cent stars and no cameras.

Everyone wants to be there – apart from Keffer, obviously. After all, as he explains, no selfrespecting photographer would go anywhere without his camera. thenightday.com

See it. Get it. Do it.

AC T I O N !

TRAVEL

DEPTH CHARGED

Welcome to freediving school.

Head to the bottom of the class

PETER PLATTNER

The human body is a fragile vessel – if you disagree, take a dive in the ocean.

If the cold doesn’t kill you, the pressure might, and the lack of breathable oxygen will. Unless, that is, you reawaken a reflex from our aquatic prehistory.

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TRAVEL He should know: before Mayol Sr passed away in 2001, he passed his knowledge on to his son, who in turn, wants to pass it on to us.

At a bay hidden by rocks lies Mayol’s training centre. At this spot, Jean-Jacques learned freediving from his father, and it’s where he now teaches his students the art of apnoea. “I want you to go naked into the ocean,” he tells a mortified group of four, all clutching freshly purchased dive equipment.“No fins, no suit, no mask.”

Gingerly, they dive down to pick up heavy stones and use the weight to perform an underwater moonwalk for as long as they can with only one breath. Half a minute later, they’re all back up, gasping for air.

Sea sure: master freediving and find a whole new world

The isle of Elba, off the coast of Tuscany, has a large history for such a small place. Napoleon spent 300 days in exile here before escaping to reclaim Paris. And in its crystal-clear seas in 1976, another man escaped the land, reclaiming mankind’s dormant connection to the ocean. Jacques Mayol dived 100m on a single breath, shattering records and expectations about his survival. Physicians predicted the pressure at that depth would kill him. Instead, blood shifted from his extremities to his vital organs, and his heart dipped to 24 beats per minute. He was experiencing the dive reflex – a phenomenon previously only observed in dolphins.

“My father survived because humans have the same reflexes as maritime mammals,” Jean-Jacques Mayol explains.

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Elba, ITALY Marina di Campo Take a deep breath and dive in at teammayol.com

Breathing calmly as you surface is vital, or you risk blacking out. This is the single greatest danger freedivers face and more commonly occurs in shallow water as pressure decreases and oxygen stores are depleted. Just an arm’s length from the surface, divers can disappear into the ocean without regaining consciousness. This is why freedivers should never operate alone and must watch out for each other. Controlling breathing patterns is also essential.

“Exhale twice as long as you inhale,” says Mayol, performing THE INSIDER an enigmatic belly dance. Doing this, the Surfacing can be students can double dangerous if you have low levels of their time beneath the surface, enabling oxygen. “Never activities far more hyperventilate,” daring than the paltry says Mayol. “You lifting of stones. won’t take in Two days later, enough air, and this could cause the four stand on you to black out.” the small beach of Pomonte, ready for their final trial – a dive to the sunken wreck of the Italian merchant ship Elviscot. “The baseline of freediving is mental discipline,” says Mayol. “Our mind behaves like a monkey; it has to be controlled.” Selecting one student, he runs through the checklist: fill the lungs with oxygen, take one last breath, equalise the ears while dropping to a depth of 8m. For the next 30m, there’s no chance to surface. “If you switch into panic mode, you’re in big trouble.”

Mayol’s son Michael, also an experienced freediver, leads the student down and into the wreck. Nearly two minutes pass. As they resurface, relaxed and without haste, Mayol grins. “It’s all about the aquatic memory,” he says. He takes a deep breath and rolls over gracefully, disappearing into the sea, never to return. Well, for at least three minutes.

SUNKEN TREASURE

More breathtaking apnoea spots

Jaws academy

Head to Shark School in the Bahamas. The fearsome predators don’t learn much, but you will as you swim with them and leading shark behaviourist Dr Erich Ritter. sharkschool.org

Get wrecked

Passenger ship SS Yongala sank off Queensland, Australia, in 1911. Ever since, it’s been one of the world’s most popular diving sites, visited by tourists and marine life alike. yongaladive.com.au

Divers’ cemetery

The 94m-deep Red Sea blue hole near the town of Dahab is considered one to be of the world’s most dangerous freediving spots, ensuring it also remains one of the most popular. freedivedahab.com

THE RED BULLETIN

PETER PLATTNER(2), GETTY IMAGES, IMAGO(2)

ACTION

ACTION

GEAR

FUTURE RETRO

Tired of endlessly upgrading your old tech?

Then don’t. Vintage gadgets are back in a big way – dial back the clock with the rebirth of these classic contraptions

Kodak Super 8 The film format Spielberg, Tarantino and Nolan cut their teeth on is enjoying a renaissance. Kodak is celebrating the revival with this camera from industrial designer Yves Béhar. kodak.com Kodak’s first Super 8 camera in more than 30 years sports a digital viewfinder.

Send in your film for processing and you’ll receive a digital scan, too

Sony Walkman A27

Star Wars Hologram Vinyl

With 64GB of storage, the legendary portable music player can carry your music in almost every format except, ironically, cassette tape. sony.com

Star Wars and vinyl – does it get any more nostalgic? Yes, it does: when you spin the LP, a hologram materialises. disneymusicemporium.com

VNYL TRNTBL

Punkt MP01

737 Cowling Chair

What this record deck lacks in vowels, it makes up for in music recognition, detecting what you play and adding it to your Spotify playlists. trntbl.co

Crafted by British designer Jasper Morrison, this ‘dumb’ phone lets you call, text, and rediscover the lost art of dinner conversation. punkt.ch

Fallen Furniture has salvaged aircraft parts dating back to the 1960s and transformed them into jet-set seating. fallenfurniture.com

THE RED BULLETIN

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ACTION

GEAR “Air is drawn through hidden vents on the sides, to cool the computer and batteries”

“With no driver, geometric fenders lead a spectator’s eye to the centre of the car”

behaviour will be like seeing petrol cars on steroids. Watching a car go past at 300kph with unbelievable aerodynamics and no driver is a hell of an experience. Inevitably, there will be collisions. From a cost point of view, no one will want that, but it’s a part of motorsport.”

What is Roborace?

INNOVATIONS: THE NONHUMAN RACE

Meet the Robocar, the world’s first driverless racing car in a sport where humans are mere spectators THE IDEAS MEN Daniel Simon, 41 & Justin Cooke, 35 Want to see the future? Daniel Simon can show you. The German automotive concept designer envisioned the Light Cycles for Tron: Legacy and the Bubbleships in Oblivion, which made him the go-to person when Justin Cooke and the Kinetik team needed a new kind of car for what could be the future of motorsport. Roborace is about to begin. roborace.com

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Justin Cooke: “It’s the world’s first driverless electric racing competition, with self-driving racing cars similar in size to those in F1. Inside is a brain – the Nvidia Drive PX-2 – capable of trillions of operations per second, and each competing team has to program it. We’re giving them a blank canvas, and the only competitive advantage is their code, making it a truly level playing field. It’s not about how much money you can spend in a wind tunnel, it’s a competition of intelligence. This is about who are the smartest engineers in the world.”

So the cars can think for themselves?

JC: “You’ve got two options. There’s artificial intelligence, where you tell the car, ‘Here’s a set of circumstances,’ scan the track and give it all that information. Then there’s machine learning, where it goes round the track, getting better and better: ‘That last turn took 0.61 seconds, but I think I can do it in 0.59 if I cut the corner, which will be 6kph faster.’ It depends on the teams and what they bring from a technological point of view.”

Without the fatality risk, will the racing be more extreme?

JC: “Absolutely. The acceleration and

Talking of unbelievable aerodynamics, how much of the car is pure style?

Daniel Simon: “This can’t only be a tech exercise, because no one would pay to see that. It has to be emotional, but we took out one of the biggest emotional factors: Hamilton and Rosberg kicking each other’s ass. The intention was to create something sleek and beautiful that still creates incredible downforce and driving dynamic. Put a team of engineers on it and the outcome is like designing a moon rover. We want to entertain and excite. We want a reaction like, ‘What the f--k, this is awesome!’”

How will the cars evolve?

JC: “Our ambition is to accelerate driverless electric technology. What’s the one thing that would really grab people’s attention and be the most exciting spectacle in the evolution of sporting competition? Google’s driverless car has driven however many zillions of miles, but most of that has been at 18kph. We’re going at 300kph, which changes everything.

“When we started, we looked at birds and fish – natural objects created to go faster and do incredible things. We could have been much more crazy and sci-fi and wild, but if you go too far, people become confused and scared, and you lose what you’re trying to do. The purpose here is to demystify the fear that ‘the robots are coming’. I think you’ll see an amazing evolution over the next few years. Daniel has some incredible thoughts on how to do that.”

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HERI IRAWAN

“The floor is a huge factor, creating more downforce and adding battery space”

ACTION

GEAR

WATCHES

Edited by Gisbert L Brunner

FINELY ROLLED

Zenith El Primero Chronomaster 1969 Cohiba Edition

Unlike the cigar that inspired it, the Chronomaster 1969 Cohiba Edition is waterresistant to a depth of 100m

The Cuban Cohiba is a benchmark in craftsmanship. Here is the cigar that Fidel Castro himself, upon encountering a blend made by artisan Eduardo Ribera, ordered into production at a heavily guarded mansion, for the enjoyment of himself and his closest comrades. To this day, every Cuban Cohiba is hand-rolled and finished at that glorious 1920s-built house – now El Laguito cigar factory – with an attention to excellence that is comparable to the Swiss watch industry. Luxury watchmaker Zenith has noted this connection and created a timepiece to mark 50 years of the Cohiba. Its dial is a rich tobacco-leaf brown and features the cigar brand’s yellow and black polka-dot livery. Inside is Zenith’s El Primero automatic movement, born in 1969, just three years after El Comandante demanded his first stash of Cohibas.

Quality and luxury aren’t the only traits the watch has in common with Fidel’s favourite smokes: with a steel edition limited to 500 pieces and just 50 in rose gold, it’s also exclusive. A revolutionary idea worthy of Che Guevara himself. zenith-watches.com

TOTALLY SMOKIN’

They may not be good for your health, but tobacco and chocolate look great on a watch face IWC Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Edition “Antoine de Saint-Exupéry” The aviator and author of The Little Prince is honoured with a 1,000-piece run of this 44mm stainless-steel chronograph, which has a split second hand. iwc.com

Montblanc Heritage Spirit Date Automatic Sometimes, perfection is born of simplicity. This 39mm wristwatch forgoes fussiness with its elegant brown dial and rose-gold case, though a transparent glass back reveals inner complexity. montblanc.com

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Swatch Schoggi The Swiss are most famous for two things – great timepieces and excellent chocolate – and this is what you get when you combine the two. Schoggi (it means cocoa) has a 34mm sun-brushed dial, with a scarlet second hand to add some punch to all that sweetness. swatch.com

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A step into the unknown, a rush of adrenaline, a surge of emotion and memories that last a lifetime.

Epic adventures in Wales come in all guises and sizes.

Where will you find yours?

Llyn Llydaw, Snowdonia

visitwales.com #FindYourEpic

ACTION

WHEELS MOTOR MERCH

The McLaren 570GT has a 3.8-litre twinturbo V8, delivering 562hp, and a sevenspeed gearbox

Adding acceleration to your accessories

iXOOST VuOTTO An F1 exhaust manifold makes a perfect amp for your iPhone tunes.

The base of the system is milled from a single block of aluminium into a Cosworth V8 replica. ixoost.it

ICE MACHINE

Shmee150 finds his sportscar heart melting for McLaren’s cool GT I’m absolutely boiling. Driving in Tenerife, the sun is beating down on me through the panoramic roof of the McLaren 570GT. It would help if I had the air-conditioning set right, but while I’m overheating, the drive itself remains remarkably chilled.

The 570GT joins the 570S in McLaren’s Sports Series. But while the latter is sportfocused, this, as the name suggests, is the grand-touring counterpoint. And that means comfort. There’s the hatchback, which adds 220 litres of luggage space, and a slightly enlarged rear spoiler to compensate for the downforce lost from its change in shape. Softer springs soak up Tenerife’s bumpy roads, and a minutely slower steering rack makes it less pointy than the 570S – but not much.

Opening it up, though, McLaren’s Active Dynamics Panel has the full range of sports and track modes, stiffening the suspension and increasing throttle response. I’m a 570S man – I like a hardcore driver’s car – but what surprises me is quite how much fun this is; nothing is lost from the basic ride of the S. This may just be the one supercar you can use for everything: intensely exciting when you push it, but with a softer, quieter ride that won’t leave you exhausted. And that’s what you want from a GT – a great drive best served chilled. mclaren.com

Senturion Key

Tim Burton, aka Shmee150, is one of social media’s mostfollowed supercar connoisseurs. Now he brings that expertise to The Red Bulletin.

Watch Shmee’s full video review of this month’s cars at redbulletin.com

Koenigsegg intends on taking the supercar throne by force

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Superleggera RS-9.1 The new racing suit at the top end of Sparco’s range is an ultra-light, three-layer design featuring Eagle stretch fabric on the floating sleeves and back panel for increased wear-resistance and breathability. sparco.it

ALL THE KING’S HORSES In Swedish, Regera means ‘to reign’, and Koenigsegg’s well-named first hybrid appears to have the power to do just that. The Swedish manufacturer’s luxury megacar offers horsepower that climbs into the purely theoretical, via a 5-litre, twin-turbo internalcombustion engine that mates 1,100hp with an electric motor offering 700hp for performance that should be mind-blowing.

It’s capable of 0-100kph in 2.8 seconds and can reach speeds of 400kph in under 20 seconds.

It’s a plug-in hybrid with the charging socket tucked away at the rear, above a cooling vent designed to mimic an exhaust. It’s also gorgeous, and I can’t wait to see one on the road. koenigsegg.com/regera

Beat your Apple Watchowning friends with this supercar-opening wristwear. Made from a combination of titanium, rose gold and even diamonds, it uses radio-frequency ID to control entry and ignition. Supercar not included. senturionkey.com

The Regera weighs just 1,470kg, and the roof stows in the bonnet

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IN THE HEAT OF ACTION, THERE ARE THOSE WHO TRUST THEIR LUCKY STAR – AND THOSE WHO PREFER THE EMERGENCY, THE WORLD’S FIRST WRISTWATCH WITH BUILT-IN PERSONAL LOCATOR BEACON. Equipped with a dual frequency micro-transmitter, this high-tech survival instrument serves to trigger search and rescue operations in all emergency situations – on land, at sea or in the air. The first ever personal locator beacon designed for wrist wear, meaning literally on you at all times, it shares your feats around the globe while guaranteeing maximum safety.

Breitling Emergency: the watch that can save your life.

BREITLING.COM

ACTION

CULTURE TV

“Won’t wear a hat, won’t grow a beard…

Do you wanna be in this gang or not?”

SWEET CHRISTMAS! That’s the catchphrase of Luke Cage. Luke who? Read on…

Cage fight

MAGNITUDE OF MAGNIFICENCE

Remaking The Magnificent Seven is not a task taken lightly. Director Antoine Fuqua explains how he found his seven and made it all happen So, how magnificent is it compared with the 1960 original?

Pretty magnificent. It stays true to the DNA of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai [the 1954 Japanese film on whose screenplay The Magnificent Seven was based], that tale of the underdog.

I kept the style classic, shooting it on film but with a modern tone – there’s no ‘western speak’ and tobacco spitting. Also, the characters are more diverse; we have Denzel Washington in the lead, along with Lee Byung-hun [South Korean], Manuel GarciaRulfo [Mexican] and Martin Sensmeier [Native American].

How did you find your seven?

It was tough. First, there was getting Denzel in a western, on a horse. Then we had to find a Steve McQueen [and we got] Chris Pratt, who’d had many offers, but loves westerns. I’d been trying to get Ethan Hawke [and Washington] together again [they had co-starred in Fuqua’s Training Day], and when Ethan heard about it, he said, “I don’t care what role it is, I’m in.”

When is this film at its most magnificent?

When 200 horses are storming down a hill towards town for the finale. Looking at all my cameras, that was magnificent. But for me, it’s when the guys are walking up the street, planning how to protect the town – I’m looking at the Magnificent Seven.

And then there’s James Horner’s soundtrack – his last ever…

James played a big part in me making the movie. When I was struggling to put it together, he said, “Antoine, you’ll be remaking history.” When he died, it was crushing. Then I was told he’d left me a surprise gift: seven songs based on the script. I played them to my entire crew, which fuelled everyone. It’s amazing, and to this day I don’t know how he did it – he didn’t see an inch of film.

The Magnificent Seven is out on September 23; sonypictures.com

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COWBOY JOBS

Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai inspired some far less magnificent creations…

Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) Billed “The Magnificent Seven in outer space” by executive producer Roger Corman, the film starred original cast member Robert Vaughn, with a soundtrack by James Horner.

Directing the special effects was newcomer James Cameron. ¡Three Amigos! (1986) The same story, but with seven magnificent warriors replaced by three idiots, played by Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Steve Martin. Has spawned its own actors-mistaken-for-heroes subgenre (Galaxy Quest, A Bug’s Life, Tropic Thunder).

Pulp friction In the early ’90s, Quentin Tarantino almost made a movie based on his love of the Luke Cage: Hero For Hire comicbook series from the ’70s. His dream casting choice? Morpheus himself, Laurence Fishburne. When it fell through, he made Pulp Fiction instead.

The Ridiculous 6 (2015) An Adam Sandler comedywestern that succeeds as neither. Most reviewers would have chosen a less flattering adjective for the title too, it seems. Has a zero-per-cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Nic the name When aspiring actor (and comic fan) Nicolas Coppola – nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola – changed his surname to prevent claims of nepotism, he chose that of the superhero. As Nic Cage, he went on to play Marvel’s Ghost Rider and, almost, Superman.

New series Luke Cage comes to Netflix on September 30; netflix.com

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PICTUREDESK.COM(3), GETTY IMAGES

FILM

Over the years, a number of actors have campaigned to play the Marvel superhero, whose powers include unbreakable skin. None more so than Isaiah Mustafa – aka the guy from the Old Spice ads on US TV – who made a fan trailer with himself as the star, and appeared in a Marvel-produced spoof.

CULTURE

ACTION

CAN ART

DIETMAR KAINRATH

Dietmar Kainrath’s pointed pen

THE UEFA COUNTRIES BEGIN QUALIFYING FOR THE 2018 FOOTBALL WORLD CUP ON SEPTEMBER 4

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CULTURE

THE PLAYLIST BEARTOOTH

GET BACH Led Zeppelin may have won ownership of the Stairway To Heaven riff in court, but classical music fans hear Johann Sebastian Bach. And his influence goes further…

Beartooth gigs are not for the faint-hearted: plastic beer glasses sail through the air as an adolescent horde pogos wildly. But, says Caleb Shomo, mastermind of the US hardcore band, that’s just how he likes it. Shomo has been driving his contemporaries nuts for the last eight years – first with his former metalcore band, Attack Attack!, and then in 2013 when he formed Beartooth with the goal of sounding even harder and more extreme. To celebrate the release of the band’s second album, Aggressive, the 23-year-old reveals five musical energy bombs that get him pumped. beartoothband.com

Rage Against The Machine

Slayer

Guerrilla Radio

Repentless [from the album of the same name]

“When I was a kid, I mostly listened to classic rock music, because that’s what my parents would play at home. But that all changed when I got a Tony Hawk video game with this song on the soundtrack – it blew my mind! The guitar riffs are so heavy, and the energy is mind-blowing. I could feel the adrenalin rush through my body. Every time I sit down to write a song, I try to recreate the energy contained in this tune.”

“What I admire about Slayer is that they never try anything innovative, they never mess with their formula. For 35 years, these thrash-metal gods have been delivering the most energetic head-bang music ever. Take this masterpiece from their most recent album. It starts with an epic guitar riff, which then powers through the entire song. There’s no letting up, it’s just yelling and musical mayhem. I love it!”

AC/DC

Motörhead

Whole Lotta Rosie

Love Me Like a Reptile [from the album Ace Of Spades]

“When you’re talking about highenergy bands, you have to mention AC/DC. Angus Young is 61 and he’s still running around the stage, head-banging like a madman. His live presence has informed my performance a lot. I’m not sure if Axl Rose [who stepped in to replace singer Brian Johnson on tour] can do justice to classics like Whole Lotta Rosie, but I’d still love to see them live. They’re my favourite rock’n’roll band ever.”

“The first time I heard this song was six years ago when we were on tour and our guitar tech played it to me. We ended up listening to the track every night before the show. With Lemmy’s harsh voice and his distorted bass guitar, this song gets you pumped like nothing else. Lemmy was the ultimate rock’n’roll badass, and he played shows right up to his death late last year. He loved what he did, which I find very inspiring.”

Slipknot People = Shit [from the album Iowa] “This song is so pissed off! Superfast parts alternate with slower head-bang riffs, and in the chorus the whole band yell, ‘People equals shit,’ over and over. Their lyrics are so raw and uncensored. I love it.

I’m not sure if we would incorporate masks and fire [two of Slipknot’s trademarks] into our live shows – we’re more about raw energy – but musically and lyrically they’ve been a big inspiration on the Beartooth sound.”

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PROCOL HARUM A WHITER SHADE OF PALE This 1967 classic – named one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone – strongly echoes Bach’s Air On The G String. Compare the descending chord figures in the intro – they sound almost identical to the German composer’s work.

THE BEACH BOYS LADY LYNDA Head Beach Boy Brian Wilson has said that Bach’s music inspired the hit single California Girls. On Lady Lynda, the band went even further, opening the song with a harpsichord melody based on his movement Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring.

THE GADGET Nura

Created by an Australian start-up, these headphones deliver a listening experience tailored precisely to your hearing. By playing a series of tones that generate an aural response in your cochlea, the device detects how you perceive frequencies. This data then determines the best possible audio setting for your ears. nuraphone.com

MUSE PLUG IN BABY The intro of Muse’s 2001 breakthrough single has been named one of the greatest rock guitar riffs ever. Few people know, though, that it’s not purely Matt Bellamy’s brainchild, but a bastardisation of Bach’s organ piece Toccata And Fugue In D Minor.

THE RED BULLETIN

MYRIAM SANTOS

ACTION

ACTION

“I remember every rock and turn of every course” Three-time World Cup champion Aaron Gwin The downhill course in Andorra starts smooth, but soon gives way to challenging sections

RED BULL TV

BATTLE THE ELEMENTS

This month’s TV is filled with the thin air of Andorra’s peaks, rugged Welsh soil, some South African surf and blazing live music

UCI MOUNTAIN BIKE WORLD CUP LIVE SEPTEMBER 3-5 The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup returns to the Andorran ski-resort of Vallnord, promising a fast, tricky course for the downhill round and a high-altitude challenge for cross-country competitors.

Sept 3, 13.30 – DHI Women and Men; Sept 4, 10.00 – XCO Women; Sept 5, 13.00 – XCO Men

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THE RED BULLETIN

CULTURE RED BULL TV HIGHLIGHTS

BESTIVAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

LIVE SEPT 9-11, 17.00 Started on the Isle of Wight in 2004 by legendary DJ Rob Da Bank, Bestival is the fitting backdrop for this stop in Red Bull TV’s Season of Festivals.

RED BULL HARDLINE

WATCH RED BULL TV ANYWHERE Red Bull TV is a new global, multi-platform channel that features inspirational and entertaining programming beyond the ordinary. Available across devices, watch Red Bull TV anytime, anywhere.

To learn more, visit redbull.tv

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SVEN MARTIN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL(2), BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, STEVE STILLS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, ERIK VOAKE/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

LIVE SEPT 18, 20.00 The world’s greatest downhill mountain bikers return to Dinas Mawddwy in Wales for the toughest course on the calendar.

LET’S BE FRANK

PREMIERES SEPT 19 For five months every year, South African big-wave surfer Frank Solomon goes missing. What does he get up to? This film shows that he will let nothing, even reality, get in the way of his dream.

AUSTIN CITY LIMITS MUSIC FESTIVAL

LIVE SEPT 30-OCT 2, 20.00-04.00 The city of Austin, Texas, is renowned for being the live music capital of the world. Tune in to this incredible event in Zilker Park and you’ll see exactly why that is.

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ACTION

CULTURE

MY LIFE IN GAMES MARK NAUTA

CLONE WARS

The game designer helped create one of this year’s biggest turn-based strategy titles, XCOM 2. Here, Nauta reveals the influences that led him to the gig THE GAME THAT MOST INSPIRED ME: MASS EFFECT

“I already knew I wanted to be a game designer before I’d played these games, but the Mass Effect series really showed me how powerful the medium can be. It evoked this amazing sense of wonder and adventure, which was backed up by interesting characters and solid momentto-moment gameplay.”

“XCOM 2 is actually the first title I’ve worked on in the gaming industry proper.

Pretty good start, I’d say. Before this, there was a swathe of student and gamejam [independent] projects, such as the cooperative, top-down shooter Tetrapulse and Groovy Tuesday, a music game where you’re a rollerskating elephant. It was a fairly natural transition to start working on hardcore strategy games.”

THE FIRST GAME I PLAYED: WORLD OF ILLUSION STARRING MICKEY MOUSE AND DONALD DUCK

NAUTA’S TOP TIP “In XCOM 2, it’s important to be tactically aggressive.

The enemy aliens have scary, powerful abilities, so if you get the chance to make a risky move and deal with them sooner than later, it might just be worth that risk”

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“I used to play this game with my sister; we’d work together to explore and solve puzzles.

I loved the Sega Genesis [the Mega Drive in Europe] and ate up stuff like the Sonic games and Road Rash. This was all happening when I was only five, but video games have been a huge part of my life ever since.”

Sega Mega Drive Arcade Ultimate Portable Old-school gaming on the go. This console has a 2.8in screen and rechargeable battery, and comes preloaded with 20 classic titles, including Sonic The Hedgehog.

MY CURRENT FAVOURITE: ROCKET LEAGUE

“I play mostly multiplayer games – anything from a quick round of Rocket League to a Civilization V marathon – to keep in contact with friends all over the country.

I still love single-player games, but who could turn down the chance to play with friends?”

THE GAME I’D TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND: SUPER SMASH BROS MELEE

“I’ve been playing this game for 15 years, and I haven’t got tired of it yet. As evidenced by its still-thriving competitive scene, there is so much room to improve and evolve your gameplay in Super Smash Bros Melee. Hopefully there’s someone else trapped on the island for me to play against.”

Atari Flashback 6 The console that helped popularise home gaming in the ’70s is reborn in this plug-andplay system, complete with two authentic controllers and 100 games, including Space Invaders and Centipede.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+ Based on the home computer that defined ’80s gaming, and crowdfunded by ZX Spectrum inventor Clive Sinclair himself, this handheld has 1,000 pre-installed classics and lets you install more.

THE RED BULLETIN

GETTY IMAGES

THE FIRST GAME I WORKED ON: XCOM 2

Go vintage with these officially licensed retro game systems

WIN WITH BEN-HUR

To celebrate the release of Ben-Hur 3D, in cinemas September 9 (cert TBC) we’re giving you the chance to get behind the wheel of a modern-day chariot for an incredible supercar track day! Visit a 21st Century Circus Maximus and feel the horse-power beneath your feet as you stampede around the track in a state-of-the-art supercar, feeling the thrill of the race just like Ben Hur! An epic, high- octane experience for you and a friend.

The film returns to the heart of Lew Wallace’s epic novel focusing on the nature of faith. The story follows a falsely accused nobleman who survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him. Both must come to choose between retribution or forgiveness.

TO ENTER SIMPLY HEAD TO WWW.REDBULLETIN.COM/BENHUR AND ANSWER THE SIMPLE QUESTION Visit the offical site at www.benhurmovie.co.uk facebook.com/BenHur.UK | twitter.com/BenHurMovie | #BenHur © 2016 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

ACTION

EVENTS SAVE THE DATE

Dive another day: high drama in Pembrokeshire

Wales has plenty more to celebrate than Euro 2016 success

18 August Wild at heart

The Green Man is an ancient symbol of pagan magic. This fourday festival in the Brecon Beacons has all the spellbinding music, mysticism and modern sorcery (science seminars) to live up to his name. greenman.net

The Blue Lagoon is a former slate quarry in south-west Wales that flooded when the Celtic Sea breached its outer wall. This month, it plays host to another man-made marvel: the UK leg of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. More than 5,000 spectators will take vantage points on its unspoiled cliffs as 22 competitors drop 27.5m at speeds of up to 85kph into the icy water below. Expect plenty of jaws to drop, too. redbullcliffdiving.com

September 1-4 Party hardy

September 15-25 Heroic performance The O2, London

Peak District Promoted as ‘Britain’s most adventurous festival’, Base Camp offers activities including climbing, axe-throwing, river-tubing, and crafting primitive weapons, plus a diverse line-up of awesome live music, across four days of fun. basecampfestival.co.uk

See Earth’s mightiest superheroes in all their muscular magnificence at the stage spectacular Marvel Universe LIVE!. Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor, the Hulk, Wolverine and more will engage in epic martial arts battles and aerial motorbike stunts set to a backdrop of cutting-edge special effects and pyrotechnics. And you won’t even need to wear 3D glasses. marveluniverselive.com

September 10-25 Fringe benefits Dublin, Ireland The Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival brings 16 days of live music, performance art, comedy, cabaret and crazy celebrations to the streets and theatres of the city.

Be sure to check out the spectacular Spiegeltent. fringefest.com

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September Captive audience The village of Portmeirion is famous for being the setting of cult ’60s TV show The Prisoner, but it also hosts a brilliant music and arts event: the fourday Festival No 6. Unlike the show’s protagonist, you’re free to leave, too. festivalnumber6.com

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September Simple pleasures The Good Life Experience is a threeday festival you may leave in better health than when you entered.

Enjoy craft beers, great talks, vintage fairgrounds and rocking music in the Flintshire countryside. thegood lifeexperience.co.uk

THE RED BULLETIN

ROMINA AMATO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, DYLAN EVANS

September 11 Waiting for the drop Pembrokeshire, Wales

ACTION

HOW TO

3

Study plants, even in a desert

“If you’re crossing land and you come across a wet area, look at the plant life. Get to a spot that’s drier and look at the plants again. Based on these plant patterns, you’ve got a moisture map. So now you can say, ‘If we go that way we’ll be up to our waists, if we go that other way we’ll get wet boots, but this way is going to be dry all the way up that hill.’

It’s also useful to remember that trees grow more horizontally on the southern side of a hill and more vertically to the north.”

4

Read signs left by the elements

“I learnt from the Tuareg nomads that when the wind blows over sand, it creates asymmetric ripples, shallow on the side the wind comes from, deeper on the other. The same happens on a beach, where these ripples reveal water flowing from the shallow side to the deep side, but not back. Asymmetric ripples with a flat top are a sign of tidal waters; symmetrical ripples show where the waves break. So whether you’re going for a swim, sail, surf or kayak, you can quickly build a map of what the water has done and is likely to do.”

NEVER GET LOST Digital maps are a wonderful thing, but when your smartphone battery dies, the world can seem like an impenetrable wilderness. At this point, it’s time to forget Google and turn to Gooley – that’s Tristan Gooley, explorer and author of The Natural Navigator.

Bored by the predictability of modern travel, the Brit looked to the likes of the Inuit, the Saharan Tuareg and Borneo’s Dayak people for traditional methods of navigation.

Gooley has since led expeditions across five continents and is the only living person to have both flown and sailed solo across the Atlantic. His know-how won’t only lead you home, but help you find yourself: “A two-mile journey using stars, animals and trees to show the way gives me the same thrill I had as a kid in a dinghy.” naturalnavigator.com

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Learn how to look

MARK THOMAS

“Your brain has evolved to spot motion, because it indicates threat or opportunity,” says Gooley. “We then notice shapes and colours. But you can override the software in your head.

Scan from left to right and your brain is on autopilot – reading has made us used to this – but go right to left and you become more observant. Your eyes feed information to the brain in a slightly different way, so it knows it needs to pay attention to something.”

THE RED BULLETIN

2

Now stop looking

“Sight is a bullying sense: when judging wind direction, your eyes will veer to that lone conifer 10 degrees off target. To tune in, close your eyes and turn your head so the wind feels equal on both sides of your nose. If it’s strong enough, you’ll hear a buffeting in each ear. Eyes still closed, do a karate chop into the wind; your hand should feel cool on both sides. Become orientated like this and you’ll never be caught out by a change in weather.”

5

Navigate rough waters

6

Avoid night expeditions

“The reflection of the setting sun on water is known as the glitter path. The width of the path tells you how rough the water is: the wider it is, the steeper the waves. An uneven width or signs of bulging reveal a rough patch of water or an area more exposed to the wind. This technique works for everything from moonlight on the high seas to a streetlamp shining onto a village pond.”

“The Tuareg don’t travel at night. To show me why, they took me on a short walk and got me to find my way back. I struggled, even though I followed basic principles. I knew where north, south, east and west were, and I knew we’d walked a certain distance for 20 minutes, then west for another 20, but the angle of moonlight changes the landscape dramatically. The moon only has to shift 15 degrees and the desert looks completely different.”

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www.dare2b.com instores nationwide

ACTIVE WEAR

POWER DRESSED From workwear to military fatigues, much of our everyday clothing has evolved from practical origins. Now, as sport becomes ever more technical, so its fabrics and designs are transforming the way we live and dress...

US skier Ed Scott invented the aluminium ski pole in 1958, spawning the sports brand that gives us the 25 Icon Hoody. scott-sports.com

A surf top that’s saving the sea, the Ocean Crew Sweat’s ‘bionic yarn’ is made from recycled plastic found on beaches. oneill.com

From golf knits to socks to this Men Originals Tennis Tee, argyle pattern always adds a casual sporty look. adidas.com

Despite the name, the polo shirt was created for tennis players – but this Olymp Polo would work for everyone. olymp.com

TOPS A sun-protective collar and breathable, quickdry fabric make this Dry Pique Designed Polo Shirt a cut above the rest. uniqlo.com

THE RED BULLETIN

Just as no one remembers the T-shirt was once a lowly undergarment, so the sweatshirt – created and named for its simple purpose as an exercise top – has long since broken free of the gym. Be seen wearing these everywhere from the office to the street to a night out on the town.

Athletic grey is a colour associated with military gym wear, but it brings class to this Mont Blanc Raglan Sweat. howl-london.com

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ACTIVE WEAR

TROUSERS Jogging bottoms and track pants have long been fashionable, but thanks to the athleisure explosion you don’t have to be Kanye to get away with wearing these to a fancy restaurant.

These Levi’s Skateboarding Collection Work Trousers typify the company’s perfect mashup of workwear and youth subculture. levi.com

The Traveler Slub Twill Pant – so named for its irregular cotton weave and the climber’s style cut of its leg. obeyclothing.co.uk

Trefoil Football Club Track Pants, with their tapered fit, bring the style of classic football kits to the new wave of athleisure. adidas.com

Featherweight, storm-resistant Alpine Houdini Pants protect from the elements, while remaining breathable. patagonia.com

Made in terry fabric in the timeless style of US military athletic wear, Eden Sweat Pants show that army life can be comfy. finisterre.com

The Todd Snyder X Champion Classic Sweatpant looks too comfy to wear anywhere fancy – which is why you must. toddsnyder.com

The Belvidere Pant is billed as mission-ready loungewear for the home, on the go, or packed away in its own side pocket. burton.com

Moto Sweatpants – so called for their ribbed kneepads and fitted legs. The fabric is already ‘broken in’ for comfort. aviatornation.com

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THE RED BULLETIN

ACTIVE WEAR Adidas demonstrates its mastery in shoe tech and branding with the Ultra Boost Uncaged. The Primeknit Sockfit upper is snug and flexible, and the Stretchweb outsole boosts footfall energy. adidas.com

The Air Huarache Ultra is a revival of Nike’s 1991 classic, with its elastic heel strap and rubber cage, perforated foam and mesh upper, and lightweight midsole doubling as an outsole. If it ain’t broke… nike.com

The DynaFlyte sounds more like a bullet than a shoe – with good reason. Asics’ Impact Guidance System uses linked components to enhance the foot’s natural gait from heel strike to toe-off. asics.com

SHOES From the original Converse All-Star to the Nike Air Jordan, the design and performance of sneakers has driven fashion and sporting achievement. With revolutionary materials and engineering, today’s sports shoes are taking style and success to the next level.

The first Vans Sk8-Hi came out in 1978. Almost 40 years later, this classic of skateboard culture remains nearly identical, with the same canvas upper and rubber waffle sole – only its reputation has grown. vans.com

THE RED BULLETIN

Sports-shoe progress is rapid, but 20 years on from its initial release the Instapump Fury OG still looks cutting edge. Go back to the future and pump up these babies for comfort and retro cred. reebok.com

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ACCESSORIES The surge in popularity of stylish and functional activewear extends far beyond mere garments. From fitness watches to sports sunglasses and adventure bags, your accessories should be every bit as action-ready as you are.

Julbo has made sunglasses since Chamonix crystal hunters demanded protective eyewear in the early 20th century. These Beach shades with Spectron 3 polarisation show its dedication hasn’t waned. julbo.com Take the robust Woodford Daypack with you, whether heading to the office or off into the great outdoors. jack-wolfskin.com

The Fitbit Blaze takes all that great fitness tracking and heart monitoring, and packs it into a smartwatch that looks sharp. fitbit.com

As sportswear turned fashion goes, the baseball hat is the one of the most enduring staples – especially in this timeless grey. soliver.eu

Sensoria Smart Socks are really smart. Comfy pressure sensors relay your footfall and cadence to a mobile app. sensoriafitness.com

The Adidas Trefoil logo sits as coolly on street style as it does on pro sportswear. Now it lends cred to this iPhone SE case. adidas.com

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Few labels combine extreme sports and highend style as well as Nixon – its Enamel Icon II Belt being a case in point. nixon.com

THE RED BULLETIN

ACTIVE WEAR

The Series One is slim cut for practical reasons – exercise and mobility. It just happens to look good, too. reebok.com

For an anorak, the Keb Eco-Shell is pleasantly stylish. And with three wind-and-waterproof layers, it’s practical, too. fjallraven.com

The Versaclime Shell lives up to its name – with sealed seams at the hood, collar and shoulders, it keeps out the elements. eu.lululemon.com

Filled with premium synthetic insulation, the Xenox X Hoodie is built for alpine activities, but designed for urban life. rab.equipment

The Legacy Insulator features bonded fleece under PrimaLoft insulated panels for serious warmth in a casual style. hellyhansen.com

JACKETS The Golis Polartec Jacket combines weather resistance and comfort with an impressive warmth-to-weight ratio. buffwear.com

THE RED BULLETIN

The anorak was originally conceived for the most practical of reasons: warmth and protection from the elements. Now, cutting-edge fabrics and a modern aesthetic have given it a new lease of life as one of the most stylish of active garments, while making it more functional than ever before.

You may not snowboard like X Games medallist Seb Toots, but with his jacket you’ll survive the elements just as well. oneill.com

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MAKES YOU FLY

What does a five-time X Games BMX champion do if he’s in search of new inspiration? He builds his own bike park. And what if said champion is Venezuelan superstar Daniel Dhers? Then he builds a park made of salt. At Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat, which covers an area of 11,600km² in Bolivia, he found more than enough suitable construction material. instagram.com/danieldhers

BMX pro Daniel Dhers, 31, tests a quarterpipe made of salt at 3,600m above sea level

THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE RED BULLETIN IS OUT ON SEPTEMBER 13 ALSO WITH THE IRISH TIMES ON SEPT 12, AND WITH THE EVENING STANDARD ON SEPT 23 98

THE RED BULLETIN

CAMILO ROZO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

SALAR DE UYUNI, BOLIVIA APRIL 11, 2016

“My lungs and eyes are burning, and my throat is sore… what a great day!”

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